# 5
When I was very small, we went to a rather terrifying dentist who masqueraded as a jolly grandpa type. His office was all painted like Winnie the Pooh (and this was in the 1970's, so it was old-style WtP) with a beautiful tree all up one corner and spreading over the ceiling, and the characters painted here and there over the walls and doors. The waiting room was kind of circular, and the three exam room doors - of the spring-hinge variety, so they stayed closed - opened off the circle. The three doors were painted with Pooh characters on the bottoms - along with grass, flowers, squirrels and other pastoral animals meant to soothe - and with huge numbers in orange on the tops. There were also big bronze dots, about 12 inches across, sort of randomly painted all over them. You got called in to one of these three doors when your moment of reckoning arrived.
I'm 34 years old, and to this bloody day whenever anyone makes some remark like "what's behind door number three?" or "and behind door number two we have..." my stomach clenches in fear just a little bit.
3 comments:
Thank you for invoking carefully repressed memories of that dentist and his office.
I'll send you my therapist bills.
Ooh, how well I remember. I actually shivered while reading that post, although I think my fear is sympathetic... I don't think I ever actually was a patient there.
Isn't it strange, how strong associative memories can be? I was never afraid of the dentist as a child (it took until the last few years for that), but there are plenty of others that I'm carefully not thinking about . . .
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