Consider I Start Saving

 

I don’t know why, though we didn’t end up seeing the dentist much in Beijing.  The Western ones were a fortune and the Chinese one’s were spooky.  And I wasn’t insured.  I’d wanted to get my daughter’s braces now that we’re back in the U.S. and before we could we’d need to get some cavities addressed.  We drove today to Dr. Trimboli, at dentist my mom uses, not far from where I went to high school, in the hopes that he’d be a bit more merciful on us than the quotes we’d gotten on this side of the river.

 

He was.  A bit.  And he seemed to have a nice chair-side manner which wasn’t the case for the person my younger one had originally had her mouth prodded by.  Checking out, confronting the enormity of what would be required to fill these holes they suggested I consider I “Start Saving.  Keep Smiling” with :DentalPlans.com.  By paying approximately $175.00 I would save around 20% on my upcoming bills and let’s just say that if this were true I would be saving much more than $175.00.  I don’t understand precisely how it is that DentalPlan.com makes its money.  I don’t care.  Something is being properly stroked by securing my participation in this plan, so that overhead is no longer required. 

I usually didn’t want to go anywhere near food after visiting the dentist but the younger one wanted bubble tea and we drove down Route 9 to the section of the mall where the tea joint was.  No one ever walks into this bubble tea place and exits before at least ten minutes has expired and so I rang up DentalPlans.com and before my daughter’s had exited, I’d talked a plan through with a woman whose name I’d asked and acknowledged but now cannot recall, but whom I thanked as I would now have a plan, in time for the older one’s return to Dr. Trimboli next Monday.

With that we went over to my mom’s place.  She and my stepdad were out on the porch.  We talked dentistry and then Long Island as they were heading out there the next day, to the north fork where my sister had a place for the next two weeks.  My daughters are invited.  Perhaps they’ll go.  I must say I’m not overly excited about a trip to Long Island.  I’ve been back in New York for nearly two years now and I realize it is what people do in the summer, but I have no interest.  Rather, I explained to them that I’d taken the plunge this morning and done what I hadn’t done in at least eighteen months:  I’d bought round trip tickets for the family.  We’re off to Spain in three weeks.  I hope we don’t regret it. 

Thursday 07/22/21