This didn’t happen to me. I heard about it from someone long ago, who lives far, far away. He told me:
*
I went to the dentist recently to have my teeth cleaned.
There was a new dental nurse who had the job of carrying out the cleaning, and it was a bit uncomfortable at times.
She seemed to misposition some of the tools she was using in my mouth, especially the gadget that squirts out water. One time it started squirting water out of the side of my mouth, down my neck, and from there dribbling onto the chair. Another time the water went squirting up my nose.
“Is everything all right?” she would ask, from time to time.
“Urghhh,” I answered, meaning, “Yes, you’re doing a wonderful job. Please don’t hurt me.”
I have a basic policy of not complaining about the work someone is doing while they have some sort of drilling machine inside my mouth. If I had gotten her angry, what could she have done to me?
[
Suddenly I hear a loud rumbling noise, like
the revving of a motorbike engine. The
nurse is turning up the power of the drill, past the legal maximum
setting. The dentist bursts in from a
side door and shouts, “Nurse, no! You
can’t turn the drill up to level eleven!
We don’t know what it would do to him…”
]
So I said nothing, and used the paper bib to wipe up the water.
When we were done, the nurse started fishing for compliments.
“You actually had a lot of stains on your teeth, but they’re clean now.”
“Thank you so much,” I said.
Of course my teeth were stained. That is why I was having them cleaned.
Perhaps the next time I get a haircut, my barber will say, “You actually had a lot of hair on your head until I cut it.”
*
I tell a lot of jokes and use humour and
exaggeration in these blog posts. If any
dental nurses happen to read this post, please remember that. Don’t be angry.
Vocabulary:
to fish for compliments – to subtly or
indirectly try to get people to say nice things about you
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