Root Canals and the Theory of the Scottsdale Leisure Class

So I have to get a root canal on an abscessed tooth.
For various reasons, none of them good, I have not seen a dentist in over two years. Lately, it's because I've been out of my parent's insurance, having graduated from college, and waiting to get all my paperwork and cards done for the company insurance provider. I picked a dentist last week, my former dentists NOT on the approved list, and went in yesterday for my first visit. I picked them because they were relatively close to me, and because it was owned and managed by the same dental care company I used in Scottsdale, and because I figured the dental work I'd need to have done was going to be a bit costly.

Anyway, 2 PM appointment = workday effectively ends at lunch, so that was not too terrible.
Office is pretty standard dentist office, clean, quiet. I filled out my forms and they took x-rays of my teeth, although they had to retake the full panoramic one. The dentist who saw me was ancient, probably extremely experienced, straightforward, and friendly. I went in expecting him to recoil in horror at the state of my mouth, including my gaping cracked tooth, but he calmly gave me two options: yank it, or root canal. I decided to keep the tooth. He also found a series of cavities on the front of some teeth, totaling four against Tay's 18.

The dental hygienist grabbed me on the way out and asked me if I wanted to get my teeth cleaned while I was there and she had an opening. Sure, I said, just get it over with. She was the most relentlessly cheerful dental hygienist I've ever seen. Surprisingly, my teeth were in pretty good shape, with very little tartar build-up, and most of the staining from decalcification hard, and not soft spots. Cleaning went pretty quickly.

Before I left, an assistant went over my course of treatment with me. Root canal, crown replacement, various fillings and surfaces, and then a $60 (my part) charge for an "occ. guard." I asked the assistant what it was. She said "Oh, its a plastic guard you wear at night." After a few more questions it emerged that it was to prevent me from grinding my teeth at night. Hmm. News to me. Funny the doc never mentioned it when he was talking me through my treatment. I asked to see where in his notes he mentioned it, and she dutifully flipped the folder to the handwritten notes page, where he had written "Occ." I grabbed the dentist on my way towards the front desk. He looked over the bill /treatment plan and furrowed his eyebrows. Apparently the desk manager had misinterpreted his occ, which turned out to be another filling treatment I needed. The $30 delta wasn't worth nearly as much to me as the wearing a plastic guard at night. "Good catch," he told me on my way out.

All the dental work amounts to nearly $500. Ouch! That's WITH insurance covering the other $800 of it.

I can't believe its been a month since my last post. I think this is the longest I've gone without posting. Time flies by frighteningly fast with work.

Mom and Tay have come and gone from town, off to visit my aunt and uncle in Findlay, Ohio. They're living in a luxury apartment complex in Scottsdale. This apartment complex disgusts me in so many ways and on so many levels, I feel nauseated and filled with loathing every time I visit it. The only good thing about it is that represents and champions high density living.

Imagine, if you will, a gated "community" in North Scottsdale, something blandly "luxurious," like a "Premium" Denny's Omlette, but with less taste. Compress this entire gated community into multistoried clumps of wood frame construction, slathered over with stucco and beige paint, add a few token trees and some pools, and you get this apartment community. If you can imagine a cast resin Victorian cherub holding a Chinese manufactured AA run clock, and the whole thing painted to look like dark wood, then you get the feel. At least it doesn't sprawl, like a rotting carcass, across the desert.

Also highly disturbing to me is the level of "Security" that these apartments present. On the surface, one would assume that this neighborhood of North Scottsdale has completely been run over by organized crime and rampant theft. There is a six digit code for the gate at the entrance. Then, there is another four digit code to get in the building. Once inside, there is even a code for the FLOOR in the elevator. Each floor is silent and windowless corridors which twist around awkardly, blank walled, and unbroken except for a large door with a tiny plastic knocker and a plastic apartment number. I got the bizzare feeling that I was actually in a government test facility where they plugged in "luxury" human habitats to study upper middle class suburubanites. It also smelled like an attic.

These apartments are in fact, as about as secure as a box of cereal to someone who has more than a mild interest in entering, and in fact, Saori and I made our way, without codes or keys, all the way to my mother's doorstep. It only prevents people from ordering out or getting newspapers delivered, as a general aggravator for everyone else. Do people really think that this is protecting them? Do they see it as a kind of Thorstien Veblen stick, a visible sign of their prosperity? "My possessions are so valuable, I need multiple security systems" kind of arrangement?