"I yam what I a yam"

I know Monday's was long but I have so much to tell you about the weekend that the bio stuff takes time. I know you all want to know what I did over the weekend.

Okay... I watched Pride and Prejudice on Monday night. I finished the movie and I was like, "I wonder what all the fuss was about this movie?" I look over and my wife is balling like a high schooler.
I am sorry to all woman but I didn't think it was that good.
I had to watch the thing with subtitles because I couldn't understand a thing they were saying and they were supposedly speaking English.
But I thought the movie was fairly predictable. Yadda yadda ya...I know it was a love story and very romantic but all the dudes had to say was "I like you" and things would have been over in about 5 minutes.

I have Just Cause waiting for me to watch.

I have thought a lot about Monday's blog and haven't really got my arms around my emotions.

Something happened last week that relates to the blog.
I have this patient that I know likes me.
She is an awful patient.
She is demanding. She doesn't show for her appointments and doesn't do the things I recommend.
You know this one. The one that is always dressed to the nines (diamonds and Rolex) and complains that she can't afford my dentistry.

Well, she came back to the office this week.
She is younger than me and is missing a bunch of molars, like all three on the upper left. I keep recommending implants.
She is a grinder and she never could afford the occlusal splint I kept recommending.
She hasn't been to our office for about 3 years.
And now she comes back in with a broken tooth.

You non dental people need to know that if you don't have molar teeth this puts too much pressure on the other remaining teeth. The forces have less teeth to be distributed to. So when you have less posterior teeth you have a tendency to break anterior teeth. And when you are a grinder...then everything is exponentially worse.

So we talked about fixing the broken tooth.
And she says, "while you are in there I think the crown you did 4 years ago is breaking".
Sure enough a crown that I did (4 years ago) is breaking.
Now here is my philosophy.
EVERYTHING I do should last. I don't care if she has one tooth in her mouth and if I fix it, there is an unwritten law that the stuff I do is guaranteed for 5 years.
My patients don't know this but if I see something I did that is not lasting or is breaking, I fix it for nothing.
So who does the unwritten law apply?
Does it apply only to people I like? Does it apply to only the people that do exactly what I say?
I don't know...it is unwritten.

Granted I think of all the stuff I do, I might have to replace something or redo something once every two years.

I tell her I will replace this crown for nothing. I have to bite my tongue. I refrain from giving her the business and not telling her it would be nice if she came around more often. I refrained from telling her if she had molar teeth things would not break as often. I have to refrain from telling her that if she go a "night guard" things wouldn't break.
The rule is if doesn't last I fix it. I stand behind my product. I can try to justify why I shouldn't do this crown over...but I can't. It should of lasted and it didn't. The honest thing to do would be to do it over and I am going to do it over.

But the real kicker was after we made new appointments she says, "Oh! I have to show you my new baby."
She takes me out to the window where you can see the parking lot and there it was...A HUGE NEW WHITE HUMMER H2.

Now I was steaming mad. I was mad at her for having such a low dental IQ. I was mad at my parents for making me non-confrontational. I was mad at my wife for marrying such a putz. I was mad at my staff for not just going off on her. I was mad at anything and anyone.
But I smiled through the whole thing.
Now I don't want to hear it from you. I know all that is wrong with this situation.
I just like to sit and fume instead of being confrontational.

I wanted to talk to you about something else today but I got a little carried away with this story and now I am mad at myself don't feel like writing anymore.

I will talk to you Friday,
john

ps I am not mad.
I am what I am. I am happy with who I am.
But this stuff is the kind of thing you have to deal with when you are the boss. When it is your reputation people are going to be talking about. When it is your work that is breaking.
Something to ponder.