I Have A Kansas Song Stuck In My Head

Yep, it's true. I am a slacker. Even my blog is yelling at me, following me without a shadow through my day so when I turn around, I can not see it following me, but I just know. I called the police. They don't care.

Okay...so in all seriousness here, folks, I know that I'm hardly updating and I'm sorry. My grandma is still in the hospital, I had a party to plan / attend (even if it was for my dog, but I won't say either way...), I had an appointment and also made cookies for a charity event for the cute little animals, amongst other things. But I don't want to talk about most of that. I want to talk about my appointment. So yes, I'm actually going to tell a story today. I don't know how fun it is, but I desperately feel the need to tell it.

Today, I had a dentist appointment. I don't know if I've mentioned this before, but the dentist office I'm going to is kind of a pain in the ass. Okay, not kind of. The only reason I was going there was because my dentist retired and my insurance covered these people. They were closest to my house and family owned, so they won by default. Since June, which is when I started going to them, there's been issues. I was just going to list them, but hell, let me just tell you a story about them, because I'm not sure if I'm angry or amused by the amount of unprofessional fail going on at this office.

Every single time I've gone to them, they've been running at least a half an hour late, even when I'm the first appointment. Not kidding. Each time I get in a conversation with the people in the waiting room, who also have the same story. After awhile I was beginning to think the only reason I was going there was to catch up on my morning talk shows that played in the waiting room. And, in the interest of time, they are very popular for giving me a card with an appointment time on it, or giving me a time over the phone, and then calling the day before the appointment to remind me of my appointment, only to give me a totally different time. At first I thought I was going nuts, even though I have a ton of doctor's appointments and never once had this happen. That was until today when I was talking to another lady in the waiting room who also revealed this has consistently happened to her, and then I knew I wasn't crazy. She said, too, she's also come in at the time they gave her in the reminder call, and then was told upon coming in that her appointment was at a different time, the original time she was given, and that the mistake was her own. It wasn't. The pre-molded plastic that molds plastic spoons is sharper than they are.

Then we have the issue that my brand new filling just cracked in half and fell out, and I wasn't eating anything that should have hurt it. Beyond that, new fillings should not be falling out. And we're not talking that I ate immediately after it was put in and it wasn't set. It was about a month later. I've never, ever in the history of my life had a filling fall out. My old dentist, god rest his soul, always got those babies in, got them drilled down so my bite was even, and I was totally set. My bite since they fixed that filling; not so even.

Also, along the same lines is the fact that while I was going to them, they decided to swap out my old fillings with the mercury in them, for ones that match my teeth and do not have mercury. I realize the mercury in them is very, very minimal, but with having heart problems, it was worth a try. Besides that, a lot of doctors have been saying that if you can get them changed out, you should. My insurance was paying, so why not do it? Because my teeth never hurt until they switched them out. That's why. In fact, when they were doing my one tooth they told me that it was so far down to the gums that she didn't know how it wasn't hurting me. It wasn't, trust me. Now, though, after she tore apart my dentist and how he didn't put any filling, or padding, or whatever it was against my gum and how he did it incorrectly, and then went in and put said filling, it hurts like hell. I can't even eat on it. But it's not like I can eat on that side of my mouth anyway, and I haven't been able to since June.

Why, you ask? Well, back in good ole June, they started a root canal. Then, they had to send in papers to get the rest of the root canal approved. Only they forgot. And then several weeks later called me and said they were sending the papers that I thought were already sent. It took three weeks for approval, and almost another month after that for them to give me an appointment, since they wouldn't just give me one when they sent the papers in after telling me it takes exactly three weeks for my insurance to respond always. So making an appointment for three weeks after the date they sent the papers to the insurance, even a month, should have been a no brainer. But no, they wouldn't make it until after the approval. So I went and got the second part of the root canal done where they filled my tooth. That's when they remembered they forgot to send in the approval for the crown. And then they forgot to send it again, and a got a call a few weeks later, the whole deal. So it's now been over four months and still my root canal isn't done. And I know what you're thinking. Why would I keep going to them?

I feel like it's because I'm a stupid idiot, but honestly it's because they were the ones with the approval to my root canal. They started it, and I preferred they finish it. I also didn't know if my insurance would let me go somewhere else since they already had the approval. I had since stopped letting them do anything else to my teeth and opted that, when they were finished with my root canal, I would go on ahead and have another dentist do everything. I just wanted them to finish my damn root canal since they were the ones with the approval. And today happened...the day when they were to finish it.

Now, please understand that by now there are stress fractures in my filling for my root canal due to them waiting so damn long to put a crown on. I'm in pain, can't eat on that side because I have two teeth bothering me over there; my root canal one and the one they swapped the filling in. I could not have been happier to get this crown put on today. I would finally have a tooth that would stop hurting, and I wouldn't have to go back to that place, therefore getting to move on and get the other stuff that is hurting fixed, since I obviously couldn't trust them to do it and my insurance wouldn't let me go to two dentists at one, especially when one was carrying the approval for my root canal. I didn't even know if I could trust them to finish my root canal, but again, they had retained the approval for it and my insurance is a bit hinky, so I figured I'd shut up and get it done there.

So here I went merrily to the dentist office today. Upon entering, I waited at the reception desk while one of the dental assistants and the receptionist continued to have a personal conversation in front of me, and ignore me like I was invisible. When they finally finished their conversation, they turned to me and then checked me in. And ask for my insurance card that they had about four copies of. Awesome. But this was typical. This happens every time. I am always second to their conversations, and they've asked me on several, but not all occasions, to recopy my insurance card.

From there, I went in and sat in the waiting room for a half an hour, which was to be expected. The funny thing was, the appointment they gave me was for 10:30, they called me the day before to "remind" me of the appointment and told me it was at 10:00. I questioned it and they insisted on 10:00, and then didn't take me until 10:30 anyway, so I'm unsure why I even bothered to go in at 10:00. I should have known better. But while I was there waiting, I was enlightened by others.

First, there was a guy who was visiting from California. He took his mom to get her teeth cleaned. He got there at 8:30. At 10:30 when I went back, she still hadn't come out. Around ten till 11:00, I went out to pee and they were just finishing her up. And all she was doing was GETTING HER TEETH CLEANED! That's it. When he left...that's all they had done. That's just beyond ridiculous, first of all.

Then, there was a lady who was there with her daughter. Her daughter had missed three days of school in the last week and a half due to their negligence to correctly do her teeth. They were refusing to pull her baby teeth, and trying to drill them and fill cavities in them. They're baby teeth. They fall out. They were hurting her, and all they wanted to do was have them pulled. Her daughter was upset and scared, and when we ended up running into them at Wal-Mart a good while later, the mother said she was taking her daughter elsewhere, as she's had it with them. She was also the one who told me they often tell her one time, and then another. Awesome.

When I finally got back to the chair, the dentist came in immediately, didn't say too much, gave me two shots in my mouth, and then left. I didn't realize that I had to have any numbing agents to get my crown put on, and I know that I should have said something when she went to put it into my mouth, but she did it so fast I barely had time to think, far more talk. A few minutes later, I started to feel kind of sick. This normally doesn't happen, but sometimes it will. Only, then I felt dizzy and I was realizing she hadn't just given me a numbing agent. She had to have given me something else...without telling me.

Then we sat...and sat...and wondered if she had died, because trust me, by now, I was numb. The thing with this dentist office is that it's very open and you can see what others are doing, so it wasn't hard to see that she was working on two other patients back and forth while I sat there feeling sick, and with a very numb mouth. I tried to pass the time by going to the bathroom, only to find she was working on ANOTHER person, and one of the other people she had started out working on, was still sitting there. This is when I became concerned that I was going to die there, but I went back to the room and waited some more, feeling increasingly worse as time went on.

After a half an hour, the numbing agent was wearing off and no one had come back to look inside my mouth. Hell, no one had even come back to check on me, say "I'll be right with you," or "go to hell." I feel the second one was the sentiment closer to what they were thinking. No one. Not one person. They just let me sit back there for a HALF AN HOUR with a NUMB MOUTH. This is when I realized they weren't coming back any time soon, nor did they care. I also realized my mouth was also not so numb anymore, meaning they were going to have to give me more of what they already had just to do what they were going to do, and for no reason. Had they worked on me instead of leaving me alone for a half an hour, we wouldn't have had this problem. Sure, maybe they would have had to give me a little more to keep me numb, but they basically just shot junk into my gums and made me sick for no reason, only to have to repeat it. This was logically problematic for two reasons...okay, more than two, but I'm trying to be nice.

One, I have issues with my heart, so we have to be careful with giving me Novocaine and anything of the like. They know this. They've known this since my first appointment. Then they do this, and would be forced to give me more because they ignored me. Then there's the issue that whatever they gave me was already making me feel sick. I didn't think I could handle more without spending the day sick. It wasn't the normal stuff they gave me, and this is when I decided to get up and take a look at the marked tubes that she had pulled the medication out of it that she put in my mouth, and had not thrown them away. The garbage can was right there and they were empty. Just saying. Upon an examination of them, I saw the one was an anesthetic, which was fine. I know that anesthetics are sometimes used in dental treatments. The problem, however, was that it had hydrochloride in it. I'm allergic to hydrochloride, and had she bothered to ask me if it was okay to give me any kind of anesthetic first, or asked me what I was allergic to first, she would have known that. No wonder I was sick.

By now it was slightly after a half an hour and I hadn't heard a word or a peep from anyone who worked there. I was done. Combine that with the fact that they had given me something I was allergic to without checking with me first, and then would have to give me either more, or more of something different because I was no longer numb due to their negligence, I knew there was not much of a reason to stick around. She wasn't getting to me any time soon. It was over an hour after my appointment, and I was back at point one and just sitting there. I've never, ever done this before, but I got up and walked out of my appointment, and as I passed several nurses with my purse and water bottle, and my mom with hers, and passed the dentist, they all looked at us, but no one bothered to ask if anything was going on, or if everything was okay. They just ignored us.

Needless to say, this was my final straw with the dentist office. When I had left, I also took my approval paper with me that they left lying out, knowing they had to remit it to the insurance company with the bill for the crown, so that they couldn't do it. Hey, it was my paper. I then proceeded to call the insurance company, who told me if there were any issues such as these, they wanted them through an e-mail, or in writing. When I got home, I wrote them out an e-mail explaining the situation, letting them know that the dentist's office did NOT put a crown on my tooth like I had been waiting over four months for them to do, as well as my other woes with them, and there were several. I then asked if there were some way for them to let me go to another dentist, and allow that dentist to send in a new pre-approval paper since the crown still needs done. I don't know what's going to happen, but I hope they don't say no and make me go back to that office, because I think if they do, I would rather go somewhere and just have the root canal tooth pulled than finish this root canal with them. I just can not do it. It's not worth my time, sanity, or the health of my mouth, the mouth they have very poorly taken care of.

The really finish off the story beautifully, they called me and left a message on my answering machine asking me to call them back. This is great, except they did this six and a half hours after I walked out. SIX AND A HALF HOURS. Look, people, either do it as soon as you notice someone left the office, or don't do it at all. I think this really says a lot about them.

I won't post the name of the dental office on here, but if you live in Western Pennsylvania, Westmoreland or Allegheny County, and are trying to find a new dentist, please comment on this blog and I will privately let you know who NOT to go to and save you the hell I've gone through with these people.

Now, because I haven't been fun, I will give you all a bonus and tell you a few cute little stories from days past, via texts that are still in my phone. I hate leaving you all with an angst driven blog entry.

- The other day my mom and I were watching Murder, She Wrote, and John Astin, who was in The Addams Family, was on there. This started us in singing the theme song, only we couldn't remember what order spooky and ooky were in, so I had to Google the lyrics. Then, after I did that, I couldn't get the song out of my head. Awesome. And for the record, it's spooky and then ooky, but these both come after kooky, which I had totally forgotten about. Ah, rhyming words. They're so fickle.

- I was sitting on the couch with one cat lying on my lap, and another up on the back of the couch behind my head. I was petting the cat on my lap, while the one behind me was sleeping. Or at least I thought he was sleeping. That was until he whacked me over the head. Apparently he was jealous I wasn't petting him, too.

- I am disappointed in myself because I actually watched several episodes of The Real Housewives of Atlanta, and I kind of liked them. But just a few things. First, I like Kim and all, but how is it that she hears herself sing, and then still believes she actually can? Is she that tone deaf? I don't know why exactly someone would choose to work with her, but with the auto-tone she sounded okay, and the song is selling, so I guess that's all that matters. But, bottom line, Bitch whose hair was tardy to the party, can not sing. Second, she does realized she just got engaged to a married man, right? Because I don't think she does. Dear Lord...

- Another show I'm a little disappointed I watch is The Rachel Zoe Project. I always wonder why I watch it, and then the other day she says "I literally felt like a cow about to moo," in reference to how she felt like it was a cattle herd backstage at a fashion show. Then I remembered why I watch it.

- I have recently fallen in love with the song Carry On Wayward Son by Kansas, and I wondered to Becky through text how weird it would be for me to have a seventies song as a ring tone. Around here, you can't have a country ring tone, as everyone does and you'll never hear your phone and know it's yours, and I usually don't hear most of the sub-par music of today ring tones, so I wanted something different. She told me it would only be a two on the scale of one to ten in weirdness, so I'm going for it. Oh, and you're welcome for the video on this. Mom, I'm sorry that it doesn't have lyrics, but it has something way better. Hot guys.

- I was coming home from getting my glasses tightened the other day, and a hardware store sign said "It's wine season! Get your wine here!" Only in Western Pennsylvania, folks. In all fairness, I think there was a wine shop back there, too, but I'm unsure and the wording was on the hardware store sign. I'm sorry, but getting wine at a hardware store would be like using Spongebob as an alter cover. Does.not.compute.

- While exiting Target, my mom was reading the reciept and making sure everything was kosher on it, when she says out loud, what's up dry sht? I almost died when she said that, and then immediately had to see what she was talking about. I come over, look at the receipt, and sure enough it said UP DRY SHT. I realized they meant Up Drier Sheets, but you guys, that could be ominously dirty. I told Becky I would scan this receipt for her to put it on 11 points. Still working on that one.

- I probably haven't told this story before, but Aunt Bev grew up in a rather interesting house. Ever since she was a teenager, she's seen things in the house, heard them, and have had strange occurrences. She no longer lives there, but when her mom passed away, my mom was helping her clean out the house and they also had some very interesting things happen, as have I. I won't get into anyone else's stories but my own, and I'll only tell one. One day I was at her house and upstairs seeing the new renovations being done. I was standing in her parent's old room when my mom announced she was going to go and move her vehicle. I stood in the room for awhile when all of a sudden I heard someone crying. Thinking it was my mom trying to be cute, I just blew it off and stepped back, fully expecting to see her standing there, because I had heard it too loudly, too clearly, and for too long for it to be anything but her, and it was a female crying. She wasn't standing there, however, and when I looked out the window, she was in her vehicle moving it. There was no way she could have made the sound that came from directly behind me only thirty seconds earlier.

That being said, we were joking about going to the house to hand out Halloween candy, as it would be like our own haunted house experience. I should explain that Bev's brother now owns the house, but has not yet moved in, and she still has stuff there she needs to get, so we'd have a reason to go over. This is when Aunt Bev goes "The problem with that is, there will be three of us there (her, my mom, and myself), and ten people handing out candy." She was referring to whatever is in the house. This then turned into us going "Some kids will be like, hey, thanks for the candy, and I'll be like, I didn't give them candy, and you two will agree, and we'll just turn around and there will be this ominous piece of candy just looming there." Needless to say, although that is unlikely to happen, we still decided to just avoid the house.

- One of the cutest movies that Disney ever did for their exclusive channel is called The Scream Team. It's a Halloween movie with Kat Dennings, Eric Idle, and Kathy Nijimy, and they hardly show it anymore. However, the best line ever comes from it. "And we're walking...and we're walking, and we're smiling...because we're dead, not depressed." The guy who said it was obviously gay, and I am obviously in love with him, and also determined when I die I'm going to run around saying that to all the newbies to the afterlife.

- I'm obsessed with wedding shows, and one of my favorites is My Fair Wedding with David Tetura. Last week on the show, there was a man named Tedroy. At first I thought his first name was Ted and his last Roy. Then, they said his last name was Johnson. Later they showed his name illuminated on the dance floor, and it was indeed Tedroy. I have zero disrespect towards the name, but I have to wonder, is Tedroy the ghetto version of Billy Bob or Jim Bob? Is that mean to wonder it truthfully?

- Becky recently bought a new jacket and asked me if it was weird she was concerned someone was going to steal it from the back room while she was working. She works at Wal-Mart, so I found this to be an illusive question considering some of the people she works with, but I couldn't evade it. I told her I'd be worried, joking, of course, and then took it back and ominously told her that No, no...nothing to be worried about. It's probably fine. I didn't think she was working with any kleptos. I also told her to watch out for box gnomes, because sometimes they get bored, and then proceeded to go back to the original sentiment and ask her all about her jacket. When she left that day, she found she had nothing to be worried about. She doesn't work with an kleptos, which is really good to know. No, seriously...it is.

- The Dancing With the Stars cast this year is adorable, especially Melissa Joan Hart. She's concerned, however, that she's a bad dancer, and although she's not great, she doesn't suck. In her package last week, though, she said the cutest thing. While practicing for her Latin dance, she goes "I know what I look like...and it's ridiculous." How can you not adore her?

On the same note, Donny Osmond keeps insisting that after all the ways he moves is body on the show, Utah isn't going to allow his Mormon self back in, which is just great and hilarious, and I love Donny in a very platonic way. This week he said it regarding that he had to dance a very sexy dance. Only, after saying that, he got up and danced with the one judge, Bruno, and then kissed him. He was all up on Bruno in a very hilarious way, to which host Tom Bergeron responded by saying, "I'd say take it outside, but that could get scary." Everyone lost their shit and couldn't concentrate, resulting in poor Carrie Ann Inaba giving a very half assed review of his dancing while laughing hysterically.

Then, if that wasn't enough for one night, Donny later proceeded to dance backstage with Aaron Carter. Okay, seriously you guys, I never thought I'd see Donny and Aaron in the same room together, or use their names in the same sentence, far more see them dancing together. However, Donny seems awesome, and many moons ago I knew Aaron and he was a really nice, easy going kid, and I'm sure he probably still is, so somehow I think they're a good match. Not romantically, just to dance together.

- The other day I had to go to the hospital for another ultrasound of my side. The doctor was concerned it could be cancerous, and would continue to do ultrasounds on it and keep an eye on it. If it grew, it was a good possibility it was cancerous, but if it didn't, I was fine. The thing with polyps are, they do two things. They grow, or they stay the same. However, they've never met me. I went in and had a ultrasound done by two different people, only to find out it had actually shrunk. No one was sure what to think of it, but it actually shrunk. They don't know why, and neither do I, but I don't care. It's harmless and it seems to be going away on its own. Therefore, I love it and want to hug it, but can't.

While waiting to go back for my ultrasound, since I was early (and they did take me on time, unlike the dentist), two interesting things happened. First, a huge, we're talking close to 7 foot and built like a brick wall, prisoner was brought through. He had shackles on and four guards. I had to pee prior and was too afraid to get up and go past him until he left.

Second, when I did finally go pee, I was in the hallway and this little girl, probably around 1 and a half, was walking by poking all these poles like Monk, and I was in front of the one pole, so she poked me and kept going like it was totally normal. She made my life. I wanted to adopt her, but I think her mom wanted her. Plus, if I was running around with a black baby, seeing as I'm the whitest girl in America, I think someone would sense something was wrong and I'd be put in jail quickly. I couldn't even go incognito. As it should be.

From there we visited my grandma, and then went to her house to check up on things, and pay some of her bills sine she's been in there for almost three weeks. When we were leaving, we noticed pictures on her neighbor's door of her grandson. He looks like a fruity politician, so I said he was going to be one. My mom said "that, or a gay party planner." Then we settled on a gay politician. Can I be besties with this kid?

- This was my excuse for not responding to an e-mail in a decent amount of time, when really I just hadn't had a chance to be online. Copied and pasted.

I just finished making neon orange Rice Krispie treats, while simultaneously ranting about how suburban lawns hate rakes. It's safer for you if you don't ask. But that's not the point of this email.

The point is...I didn't get back to your email last night. Look, I'm going to level with you here with no BS or exaggeration. Last night, I was testing out my new job as the Wicked Witch Of the East. My first mission was not to answer any emails. As you can see, I resigned before my first twenty four hours were up. Some call me a quitter, others a lose, and none an entrepreneur. But I just think I didn't have it in me.

- After the last blog, I'm sure you know about the game of Life, and the antics that have ensued while my mom and I played it. Now, add Aunt Bev, because that's exactly what happened on Saturday. Here are the highlights.

Everyone married someone of the opposite sex, instead of the same sex, like my mom did last time. So obviously my mom and Aunt Bev didn't get married even though we decided it was totally acceptable to marry someone of the same sex if we so choose. I decided to ask them who they did marry, then. My mom said James Gardner, who is thirty years older than her. Aunt Bev decided she married the guy from a vibrator ad in one of her magazines. This is the ad she makes fun of it because it's for a woman's vibrator and tries to claim that it's so discreet, that your significant other won't know you're using it. We don't believe them.

I, on the other hand, was a major whore in the game. Or, as Lauren likes to say, whoire. I'm not sure why she uses whoire when she types, but she does and I love it. Anyway, I had a ton of kids. I was totally octo-mom with a fake husband, who I decided was Jensen Ackles. Who says board games are fun and imaginative?

- And last but not least, the Supernatural quote of the day. "Being a fugitive; freaking dance party." Their idea of a dance party is not the same as mine...of course he was being sarcastic. I think.