Part of Two Writing Teachers Slice of Life

Reminders aren’t working. Last March I set a reminder on WordPress – and I never turned it off. So every day at 10:00 in the morning, my phone notifies me that is time to blog.

Yet, I do not blog every day, or even every Tuesday.

My latest phone software update added a journaling app. I explored it a bit, and now it sends me reminders every day at 10:00 at night. “New Journaling Suggestion” it says. Every night.

Yet, I haven’t written in that journal. Not even once.

It’s a little creepy how the journaling app uses phone data to suggest things from my day that I might want to write about. Today it wonders if I might want to write about my “Afternoon visit near the dentist.”

I mean, sure. I can do that. If you insist.

I was near the dentist. Very near. Okay, I was at the dentist.

I always hope for a reason to cancel my dentist appointments, but today I just had to make myself go. Adulting, right? Later the dentist even thanked me for taking time out of my afternoon to spend with them. So I feel this appointment was like a gift I could give their whole office.

I was even early enough to do some work in the van before heading in, because why wouldn’t you use your sick time to catch up on a few things for school?

I’m not sure why I try to avoid the dentist when it’s actually fine. It’s good to get your teeth cleaned and checked! My dentist is nice, the hygienists are nice too. The one I had today hadn’t seen me since the divorce, I guess. She wondered about my name change, told me she hasn’t seen my ex husband for awhile either.

In completely unrelated news, I didn’t even ask her to jab anyone extra hard with the dental pick next time she sees them. Points for me!

The hygienist looked at a place on one of my teeth they have been keeping an eye on. She told me that all would depend on which dentist came to check on me. My usual dentist is a conservative watch and wait kind of guy. The new, fresh out of school dentist is more likely to want to do more.

My mouth was too busy to engage in a conversation about consistency of care. But I did wonder. Like if the new dentist came to check on me, and told me I needed to get a filling, could I just yell for my regular dentist? Would he hear me? Would he understand what I was saying while the new dentist’s fingers were in my mouth? Would he help me?

I worried for nothing. The new dentist was nice, definitely fresh out of school. And he isn’t worried about any of my teeth. His check up was so different from what my regular dentist usually does though. Do I just not remember having to turn my head from side to side, having my throat pressed on, the under the tongue check?

No signs of mouth cancer though. That’s what he told me anyway.

There’s something I didn’t even know to be anxious about at my dental check-ups. Cool.

Come to think of it, maybe this iPhone journaling prompt thing will come in handy in March. I would never have thought to write about going to the dentist.

Don’t worry though, I don’t plan on going back to the dentist for another 6 months.