The Dentist Visit
By Melody Beerbower 10-22-2017
Juliet needed to visit the dentist. That was a sound fact. She had received a little postcard in the mail with a smiling tooth holding a toothbrush. The postcard said "We've missed you. Make an appointment with us today."
Well might they have missed her, Juliet thought as she stared into her dusty bathroom mirror. The last time she'd been to the dentist was forty years ago when she was a fine young woman of fifty-two. She was certainly overdue for a visit.
Juliet smiled at herself in the mirror, then frowned. Way overdue.
She hurried out of the bathroom pushing her four-wheeled walker with built-in high-def speakers. She skidded around the hallway corner, lifting her slippered feet off of the floor to glide across the dinning room linoleum. When she hit the living room carpet, she was flung forward so that she hung over her walker as if she were about to receive a paddling. Pushing on the bars of her walker, she tried to tip her feet onto the floor again, but only slipped father forward.
Her wrinkled hands rested flat on the floor. She pulled one forward, then the other, hoping to pull her legs down the other side of the walker. It only succeeded in pulling her across the threadbare carpet, feet dangling in the air, one fuzzy slipper threatening to slip off.
Juliet craned her head up to see where she was headed. The stairs were in front of her, so hand-over-hand she pulled herself to them.
"Always did fancy walking on my hands," Juliet said as she went along, getting redder and redder in the face. "Never realized how much blood rushes to your brain. The view though is quite interesting."
She saw a sky of matted green carpet, the upside down legs of her walker, a china cabinet with its collection of ceramic Easter bunnies miraculously hanging on upside down as though they'd been glued there.
The view from above was no less interesting, had she been able to see it, for by this time Juliet's blue flowered night gown had fallen well above her large cream-colored, silk granny panties and the bejeweled, pink slipper on her right foot was staying on only by the vice grip of her wrinkled toes on the fluffy band that was normally worn across the top of her foot.
By this time, Juliet had pulled herself upright using the stair railings and was once more standing on her feet.
Yes, she nodded to herself, definitely time to go to the dentist.
She began climbing the stairs to put on her shoes. Halfway up she stopped, one hand on the rail, the other on her thigh clutching a postcard with a smiling tooth. She licked her lips and stared at the ceiling. What had she been going upstairs to do? She glanced down at the postcard. Oh yes. Go to the dentist. Well, the dentist certainly wasn't upstairs in her bedroom.
She turned around and trudged back down again. As she stepped off the last stair, her foot caught on her nightgown and tore off a piece of lace.
"Oh my goodness," she shouted, making herself jump. Then, "I can't go looking like this."
Juliet turned around and began ascending the stairs once more. Halfway up she stopped and stared at the ceiling. She ran her tongue over her lips again and glanced at her hand. "Dentist," she said to herself.
At the bottom of the stairs, she held the walker and pushed it across the floor to the front door. When she reached it, she put her hand into the basket on the side of her walker and pulled out a set of car keys.
"Good thing I swiped these back from Carol when she was here." She giggled to herself and unlocked the door.
Juliet pushed play on her i-pod before stepping out the door.
She walked along the sidewalk to the driveway making sure she never stepped on the sidewalk cracks along the way. When she reached the driveway, she looked up. There was no car.
"Someone stole it," she muttered, shaking her head with a scowl. "Well, I'm going anyway."
With the rhythmic beat of One Direction's History pulsing around her, Juliet made her way down the sidewalk. Shuffle, shuffle, slide. Shuffle, shuffle, slide. And one hop to avoid the cracks.
Before it grew dark, but not before draining her i-pod battery, she reached the dentist office. A young man was just leaving.
"Are you the dentist?" Juliet asked.
"No ma'am," the young man replied, looking at the tattered night gown and slippers with mild concern. "I'm the basketball coach." He placed his hand on her walker. "Do you need any help?"
"I knew you weren't really the dentist," Juliet said swatting his hand away. "No dentist would have such ugly yellow teeth." She nodded so hard it shook her stiffly permed white hair.
The man left, and Juliet entered the building. No one was in the waiting room, so she slipped through the door into the dentist's office where the dentist was putting away his tools. He jumped when he turned around and saw her sitting the swivel chair where he worked on his patients.
"I'm sorry, Ma'am. Did you have an appointment?" he asked.
"Nope, but I got an invitation." Juliet waved the postcard with the smiling tooth at him.
The dentist took the postcard, looked at it and said, "that's not really-"
Juliet reached out and patted his arm with her wrinkled hand. "What a fine young man," she crooned. "And very clean teeth. That's how I knew you were the dentist." She nodded to herself and winked at him.
The dentist sighed. He put a bib around her neck, tipped back her chair, and grabbed one of his tools. "Say 'ah'," he told her.
Juliet opened her mouth and said "ahhhh."
The dentist stared at her a moment looking very confused.
"Um, excuse me Ma'am," he said, "But, you don't have any teeth."
"Oh goodness!" She said, "I knew I was forgetting something."
The End
