Narcissism

Here I am in the dentist chair, mouth wide open and loaded up with steel utensils. The dentist is working away. The process of installing this little oral splint is sort of complicated, I think; I can hear him making little grunts and I can feel him trying to get to this little spot in my mouth from different angles.

After a few minutes he seems to sigh with relief; I can see his muscles relax out of the corner of my eye. With a sense of accomplishment, he says, “Donka.”

Now, neither I nor my dentist are German, but as far as I can tell, he is offering an informal German “thank you”. He is saying thank you to ME—perhaps playfully,as in, “you were a good patient through that.”

Of course, since all I’ve been doing is keeping my mouth open and periodically resisting the impulse to gag—surely I don’t deserve any thanks. But, to be involved in the little conversation, and even though my mouth is open and full of tools, I kindly deflect the gratitude back to where it belongs: “Thanks to YOU,” is what I intend. It comes out as something like ANGS OO YUU.

But apparently the job is not done. He leans over and, again, squirrels away in my mouth.

Two minutes pass.

Sounding really finished this time, and leaning back, he says it again, “Donka”. To keep things going, but with my mouth still loaded up, I give him another, “angs oo yuu”.

He starts taking out the utensils.

At this point his assistant walks in the room and asks, “Yes doctor, what would you like?”

He says, “Donka, would you get me some…”