He is Our Meal Ticket

Hey,

I had an eventful weekend.

Friday night was Madison’s Birthday party. The big American Doll presentation.

I think she had a great time. All her friends were there and there was even a surprise Ms. Debbie.

Then we went home to do Pizza and a movie with the family. We watched Miracle.

It is a great family movie. Good times.

I am not going to talk about the Gators (because my not talking about them has apparently helped them) but I can talk about the trip I took to Jacksonville with my son Luke and a couple of my friends and their kids.

I got my run in on Saturday morning and then we left Orlando about 9:45.

We got to Jacksonville at about 11:30. This was enough time to set up the chairs and have a beer and a cigar and relax.

Then we went off to the game. It is so awesome getting to a game in a big city. They do it up right.

The game was great. Literally half the stadium is red and black and the other half is orange and blue. The stadium has a back drop of the city on one side and the backdrop of the water on the other. Real nice.

At the end of the game it took awhile to get to the car because Alltel Stadium is tough to get in and out of.

We finally got into the car and just drove a bit. We were hungry so we stopped in St. Augustine and had dinner at Cracker Barrel.

Food, it is amazing to see what it will do to rowdy 10-13 year olds. They were zonked in the backseat of the van about 10 minutes after dinner.

Rolled into the driveway at about 11:30pm. What a day. (Considering I was up at 4:45am to go running).

A lot going on but I want to get right to my story.
I am sitting in my office after work and I hear the chime of the front door. After I hear some discussion up front one of my staff members comes and gets me.
Some-one up front wants to talk to me. She says that his two year old son had fallen and chipped his tooth. Now as I am walking up front I am preparing myself for what I am going to see.
I have seen it all. Kids with lips all busted up….bleeding lips and bleeding gums. Teeth totally busted out and teeth moved but not out.
I have seen teeth broken at the gumline and I have seen little tiny chips.
So I immediately switch my mind into worst case scenario mode. I prepare for the worst.
I go up there and there is a man holding his son. He shows no signs of trauma.
He obviously was not traumatized and neither was his son.
I switch into this is no big deal mode.
The father says that he chipped his tooth.
Now all of us who have kids know that all kids chip their teeth.
I have had three kids with teeth. I had 4 chipped anterior teeth and one avulsed tooth.
AND I AM A DENTIST.
Well, let me tell you what the treatment is for a chipped tooth on a person under 8 years old…..NOTHING.
I said it is no big deal. His gums don’t look like they have been traumatized. He is going to be fine.
But apparently this was not enough for this dad.
He said, (literally he said these words) “I want to get this fixed because he is our meal ticket.”
Then he went on to tell us that they have him in modeling and are looking on getting him into commercials.
Did you hear me? They want this two year old to be able to pay for them to live.
Things that make you go hmmm?

Okay, let’s stop here for a minute. We all think our kid is the cutest thing in the world. We see our kids and say, “They are cuter than that kid in the diaper commercial.”
But we all know that this kid in the diaper commercial is not going to be the next Drew Barrymore.
You see these reality shows on parents and their kids trying to win pageants. All the parents look like idiots. And for what I have seen it is all about the parents and never about the kid. Now I take what the reality shows portray with a grain of salt but…
What is so wrong about our kids just going through life being normal? Why do we all want our kid to be famous?
Just take a glance at People magazine and tell me how many famous people look happy in this magazine. Now I know that the stars in People magazine are not a perfect representation of all the stars.
So back to the kid in my reception room….
I tell this father that if he really wants it done that I would recommend that a pediatric dentist take care of this. I told him I have this friend that is a couple miles away that would love to fix this tooth for your son.
He told me that he had a chip and I fixed it and he was very pleased, could I work on his son.
So being the sucker I am I said I would try. He said his son is real good and I shouldn’t have a problem doing the work.
I told him that I didn’t think he would be able to do it but I would grant him his wish.
A couple of days later he was in my chair.
How do you think it went?

Well, first of all, the dad didn’t bring him. Mom and grandma brought him.
And it went about has well as expected. He wouldn’t let me even go near him.
The mother tried all the coaxing and then the grandmother came in and did some “bad cop” routine that didn’t work either. They were both annoyed at the kid.
I told them, “Don’t be annoyed at a two year old for acting like….well, a two year old.”

This job is so interesting. You get to see people for who they are.
You, most of the time, get to see people raw.
You get to see people, elated. You get to see people in pain (hopefully not of your doing) physically and emotionally.
And most of the time it is not pretty. I tell you people are great. People are nice.
But even I will be a total a@#$!*ole when the rubber hits the road.
When it is all done I say to myself, “what just happened there? You were such a turd.”
You feel guilty and then apologize. But that tells me what I look like inside.
BLACK.

I am going to stop here but I still want to talk about this. I just read an article about Andre Agassi and how he resents his dad for pushing him into tennis. He goes on to say he hates tennis.
Can you imagine if Tiger came out and said he hates golf?

Have a great Wednesday,
John

Today is the first day of flag football practice.
I brought my easel in order to draw plays for the kids.
Man am I excited about this.
I even slept pretty good last night.