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Wednesday, December 27th

The Happy Chinese Astronaut...

I barely got up in time to see my dentist. Whenever I'm back in town, I always see the family dentist, Dr. Lee (named changed to protect his practice just in case). That guy smiles ALL the time, and for reasons unknown to myself, it makes me want to pick on him. I guess because he has a rather GOOFY smile, not to mention the fact that he always wears that head gear which makes him look like a happy Chinese astronaut. I can barely refrain from laughing every time I see him.

The Happy Chinese Astronaut scares people...

So today I go in, and as I sit down on the chair, he cheerfully says, "Hello Christine! So nice to see you again!" I couldn't help but say, "Well Dr. Lee I'd say the same to you except that I can't really see you underneath your little space helmet!" He smiles and says, "Oh, that's okay!" I'm thinking, it is?!

We talked for awhile and I mean, like 10, 15 minutes, just chit chatting about nothing much. He told me about his trip to Rome, and we talked about my life in Taipei, etc. And the whole time I'm thinking, you know this is a pretty busy clinic, how does he have time to sit around and talk like this?! I know this is the South and the pace is a lot slower but still...

So finally I decided to conclude the conversation by saying, "Well so I guess I'm here to have a check-up!" and leaned back on the chair. He says, "Yes!" and takes his place, right on cue. Just before he starts, I had to ask him one more question, "Dr. Lee, do you always spend time talking to your patients like this before you begin?" He smiles and says, "Yes! This helps everyone not to be so nervous!"

Me: "Nervous? Why would anyone be nervous?"

Him: "Well it helps them not to be so scared."

Me: "Scared? Dr. Lee are you trying to tell me that you SCARE your patients?!"

Him: "Yes! Sometimes!"

The funny thing was that I think he was serious. I held my breath so as not to laugh.

The Happy Chinese Astronaut gives me a free bath...

I finally shut up (he was probably relieved) and let him do his job. So he and his assistant started jabbing my teeth with all sorts of metal contraptions, both of them looking at me through their plastic space helmets. Water was splashing ALL OVER THE PLACE, and eventually it made its way (the water I mean) down my neck, and into my shirt, which, amongst other things, tickled. When he finally said, "How are you doing? Are you doing okay?", I said, "Well Dr. Lee, I think you just gave me a bath."

Dr. Lee didn't know what to say. He just sat back and smiled with this confused and almost embarrassed look on his face. I frowned disapprovingly and asked, "Are you going to charge me extra for this?" He says, "No. Uh, this one's on the house?" Oh, I said. Okay. Cool beans. And the comedy continued. Later I told Mom, who was waiting in the reception area, what happened. She said, "I could here you laughing all the way down the hall!"

Oh... oops!

A rather long entry about a relatively unmeaningful albeit funny conversation, but there ain't that much to do around here. The worst part of it all is that my Southern accent is kicking back in BIG TIME. We spent the rest of the afternoon getting stuff for the house, and by the time we got back home, I was really, really exhausted. Crashed until 9 pm, got up, ate, had an otherwise uneventful day, and now I'm sitting here at the computer writing about how uneventful it was. HELP!!! SOMEBODY GET ME OUT OF HERE!

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