I call Uncle.
I surrender to the dental hygienists and if I could get my hands on a white paper clip-on bib, I’d fashion it into a flag and wave it. Because I’m looking at possibly never being able to get dental care in North America or the United Kingdom until I can get my name legally changed and some work done on my face.
A few days ago I wrote a blog post about a recent visit to my dentist in which my dental hygienist PO’d me. Did you know that the dental hygienists are an extremely close-knit professional group of people who, if one of their own is attacked even as benignly as via a little-read humor blog, they will go all kinds of crazy on your ass. Postal workers have nothing on these people. I officially coin the phrase Going Dental Hygienist and plan to use if often so it will catch on.
And I say that in all respect. For 24 hours, I watched that one blog post go viral (not in the good way), get reposted and comments blow up on several Facebook pages and The Morning Journal, where it was posted along with my own website and blog site. I also got a bunch of emails and private Facebook messages. One dental hygienist even found an author Facebook page I set up but never got up and running. Going Dental Hygienist doesn’t just mean unleashing a shitstorm of fury, it means being resourceful as heck.
I hadn’t seen anything like this since I ticked off the knitters. I don’t anger people often, but when I do, I make sure it’s a group with sharp objects handy. Next up: My controversial blog post blasting fencing. What could possibly go wrong?
I let the dental hygienists pee all over my Cheerios for a whole day, so now I’d like the chance to say some things in rebuttal.
The roughly 52 people who said I was “stupid,” “an ignorant bitch” and similar synonyms, you, sirs, are correct. I was stupid to use that snarky line about the associate’s degree. Stupid, because I don’t look down on people who have two-year degrees, so that remark is not representative of my opinions. I was trying to criticize one person who pretended to be more highly educated and in a higher position of authority than she actually is. And let’s add “lazy” to the list of things that I am, because I didn’t take the time to write the blog in a way that wasn’t dry and bitter and scathing. The whole mess was like a kale salad without dressing that’s been set on fire. Let’s add “tasteless” and “not worth the money.”
Despite what about 78 of you suggested, I don’t walk around angry at the world all the time. I don’t “need peace” (although those of you who offered to pray for me, I’ll take that, thank you, unless you’re praying that I lose my retainer). I have plenty of peace. I left that one dental visit upset, but I’m not a deep-down angry person. I tip well, I say “thank you” way too much, I give money to the homeless, and just yesterday in a long line of traffic at a light, I moved way over and up to allow a car to get past me to a left-turn only lane. ‘Cuz that’s the kind of person I am.
And contrary to what another four of you asserted, I am not that patient who’s always late, cancels appointments, complains constantly, and acts like she knows more than the dental hygienist about dental care. And now that I know that one hygienist commenter out there , Aaron C., sometimes likes to “photographically memorize (his problem patient’s) address, look to see what car they are driving and sharpen my sickle so I can shank their tire” I certainly am going to be on my best patient behavior. The rest of you, don’t worry; Aaron C .was just kidding. He was being sarcastic. You need to take things that people write with a sense of humor.
I know there are other accusations about me out there, but I have to be honest, I had to stop reading them after a while. If you had a particularly clever curse lobbed at me after 5 o’clock Pacific Time last night, it was lost on me. I’ll try to read them in their entirety after I mop the tears off my floor.
I’ve decided to use this as a learning experience. Thanks to all the comments, I now know that a “pointy thing” is called a “pic” or a “probe” or a “scaler.” And I know there is a difference between the Sonicare and other “toothbrushes that shake back and forth real fast.” I realize that most dental hygienists are not, in fact, getting kickbacks from Sonicare. One dentist wrote me that she absolutely does not have any arrangement with Sonicare. “Mine is with Oral B,” she wrote. Glad we cleared that up.
I am open to other corrections about dental hygienists and their schooling, licensing, difficulty of their work, how they’re treated terribly by their dentist employers, and how the majority of their patients are truly sucky. But I’m sorry to say that I won’t take back the specifics of my complaints about my one experience with one dental hygienist on one day. I was there, you weren’t, so in this case I do know more than you.
I did learn a lot, though, from your comments. I’d like to thank the lady who said she could tell from looking at my Facebook pictures that I have “a little perio going on,” for not pointing out that I’ve also put on about 10 of the most persistent pounds in my life, and I have a couple chin hairs that are going to town. I’m traveling and I don’t have a decent magnifying mirror. I’m using my Facebook pictures blown up to 200% to gauge where to tweeze.
Thank you, only person to publicly support me. Brian C said “Dental humor and it’s actually pretty funny. . . Lighten up.” The other supportive communications were private, and most likely from IP addresses from the Dark Web. But that’s OK. I completely understand. Save yourselves. You don’t want to get down here with me and Brian C. For all we know, he’s wearing one of those X-ray shield body armors.
Thanks, also, to the dental hygienists who said – and I quote – “I hope this woman’s teeth fall out,” “I take comfort in the food rotting between your teeth,” “She obviously does not have you as her hygienist, Gloria! But if she does, I think you should stab her with your ‘shank'” and “Sure hope you don’t end up in my chair! *winkyface.” Before reading these, I was starting to believe that I actually was the nasty one and the dental hygienists were serious professionals who were undeserving of my criticism. I took my own advice and did not take these comments seriously. I simply shook it off, locked my doors and updated my will.
I do wonder – and maybe the dental hygienists out there can answer this for me – is this the first time you’ve rallied together against a little-known blogger? Am I your first? I think not. You seemed to have a well oiled, highly organized, strategic system in place. Within a couple of hours, you made me feel like I was Ann Coulter. And there is no shortage of dental hygienist haters on the Internet. You think I was nasty? This one patient hates her hygienist so much, she made fun of her child’s photo on the shelf. Come on people, I would never do that! I’m assuming you’ve taken care of her.
To conclude, we were all eventually put in a time-out by one commenter who said, “Professionals don’t threaten. Sorry, but retaliatory comments affirm her stance.” To that, Angie H. said “Not everyone ‘threatened.'”
And I said, “She started it.”
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Read more of Diane’s Just Humor Me columns here. Sign up for our weekly e-newsletter to get new blog post notifications. And if you like her blog, you’ll love her book, Home Sweet Homes: How Bundt Cakes, Bubble Wrap, and My Accent Helped Me Survive Nine Moves.
