Pirate School

Ok...so what's with pediatric dentistry? The other day, my 4 year old son falls and smashes his front tooth a bit. Its really loose, so we take him down to the dentists to make sure everything is ok. We had gotten this flyer in the mail about this new pediatric dentists office near our home, so we decided to check it out.

First thing that should have tipped me off was the location. Any dentist that can afford to have an office adjacent to the hospital is going to be expensive. My first real clue was when we walked into the office. She had this Disneyland style fake tree right there in the middle of the office, complete with animals and stuff all over it. It was the center piece for the front counter. All the walls were painted in this jungle motif as well...sort of a mural throughout the office. THAT couldn't have been cheap, eh? In the waiting room, she had a video game console and a ton of toys for the kids to play with. That in and of itself is not TOO bad, but the video game console was a full touch screen thing that was amazing in its own right.

After we sit for a few minutes waiting and filling out boatloads of paperwork, I begin to notice that there are no other patients. Not any being seen, nor any in the waiting room with us. And her office is HUGE. We finally get taken back to have x-rays done and I'm looking at all of the state of the art equipment in there and my heart gets this sinking feeling...I'm going to get soaked from this gal. When we finally get to the chair and our son sits down, I look around and every single chair in the office has its own flat panel TV above it with a movie running. Hell, I'd love to have one of those damn things for MY house, and she has at least 20 of them in her office.

After the cleaning and her "inspection" of my son's mouth, she comes up with his comprehensive plan for his dental work. Bear in mind here again, my son is only 4 years old. According to her, he needs a crown on one of his teeth...a flippin crown!! ON A BABY TOOTH!! She says he needs $1400 worth of dental work for two appointments.

So I ask myself at this point. Is it really dental school that they go to? Or is it in fact Pirate School? They must all graduate with an eyepatch and a hook, with a map to the buried treasure which just happens to be located at my bank.