Vocabulary for the story:
昨日 – kinou - yesterday
キャラメル – kyarameru - caramel
バリバリ –baribari - “crunch”
歯 – ha - tooth
いけない – ikenai - “oh, no”
歯医者 - haisha – dentist
怖い – kowai – scary
昨日、I was eating a キャラメル。 Yummy! So, I ate another キャラメル。 As I enjoyed its delicious taste, I was very surprised to hear バリバリ。 That is not really a good sound to hear when you are chewing on a smooth キャラメル。
So, I poked around in the キャラメル。 I found a little bitty piece of white. Still fearing to accept the obvious, I poked my tongue around in my mouth. I was just about to exhale a sigh of relief when my tongue discovered a little hole in the side of my 歯。 いけない、I thought. I am going to have to visit the, gulp, 歯医者。 Double gulp.
This morning, I went to the office, and my English-speaking supervisor was not there. Triple gulp. So, I asked if he would be coming, only to be told he was off on an island. Quadruple gulp.
I managed to explain what happened, and the people in the office called and set up an appointment for me. Then, they handed me a map and showed me how to get there. Yes, I would be entering the dungeon 歯医者 office on my own. Quintuple gulp.
When it was time, I headed for the 歯医者 and entered the building. It was very 怖い！ I didn’t have to do much paperwork, and for that, I was grateful. Everyone in the office was dressed in the old fashioned dental outfits with the double buttons. It was kind of cool and retro-looking, although I’m not sure that was the look they were going for.
From the waiting area, you could see a dental chair setup just kind of hanging out in a large open space. Maybe they sell tickets? I don’t know. I didn’t see anyone it it.
A few minutes before my scheduled appointment time, they called my name. 怖い！ I followed the assistant around the corner to find a row of dental patients. Yup, three bright white and yellow chairs, right in a row.
“Toto, we aren’t in Kansas anymore.”
I got to sit in the middle chair. I refrained from leaning over to the good folks on either side and saying, “So, what are you in for?”
Pretty quickly, the 歯医者 came over, poked around at my 歯 and said I needed a filling. OK. So, we moved over to the filling chair. It was in a corner by itself. It was difficult to say goodbye to my new friends, the other patients. We had been through a lot together.
About 10 minutes later, my 歯 was refilled, and I was on my way.
Total time spent: About 15-20 minutes
Out of pocket cost: About 15 dollars
Amount of 怖い: Priceless
Comments
P. S. sorry about your tooth . . reminded me of chomping on some m and m's in minnesota, and caarrrunch . . there went a tooth. and by the way, i had a filling done recently, and it cost me 2oo dollars . . i guess that was so pricey because i had a private room?????
You really made my brain work by having to decode vital parts of this post. It proves how important it is to provide relevant material for new readers. I was so interested in what happened to you, that it kept me reading even when the reading itself was challenging.