Dentist Printer

At 6.30 AM this morning, as soon as I am awake, I am unhappy. I have a dental appointment today. I go to the dental office, the Dentist tells me all about "The Da Vinci Code" as he drills and drills and drills and drills and drills and then he gets a bigger drill and drills so it feels like I have a malfunctioning 2 stroke motorcycle engine strapped to my head. More drilling, water splashing, suction, air please, stuffing, pushing, scraping, packing, drying, open as wide as you can, drill, drill, done. Signing the bill on the way out, the dental assistant cannot get the printer to work. It alternately won't print, or it prints the wrong document, shreds the pages it is outputting, jams, or takes forever to print. I watch her try to produce the bill for over 15 minutes. She unplugs the printer from the network, reconnects the printer, partially disassembles the printer, disconnects, reconnects printer, and so on and so forth. She expects me to get impatient at this, but I reassure her I am not impatient. Gradually though, while I am waiting, I start to hear a small child in the back of the dental office crying as the Dentist works on him. I watch the assistant work with the printer as the child's moans and cries evolve to delirious shrieks and screams. The printer being jammed forever doesn't bother me, but the agony of the small child begins to get on my nerves. The assistant pretends she doesn't hear anything, or possibly she is so used to little kids crying at the office -- the sounds do not register. I tell her to fax me a copy of the bill and leave the office. For the next few hours I have a soundtrack lodged in my brain of a small child yelling at the dentist's office. I try to drown this out with heavy metal music, but this phenominon unfortunately has to wear out so slowly on it's own...and eventually it does.