The Forgotten Dental Appointments of Brian J.

So I have a dental appointment today. I scheduled it specifically for July 1 because of course I would remember I have a dental appointment on Canada Day. But I’ve not been so diligent in recent years in recalling my dental appointments.

The penultimate penultimate time, that is the appointment before the appointment before last, I almost missed it; it was a ten o’clock appointment, a little later than normal–I usually schedule them after I drop the boys, and now just the youngest, off at the Lutheran school in Springfield so I could drop them and get my teeth rotated while I was in town. It was fortunate that it was a ten o’clock appointment because I dropped the boy off and made it all the way home when I got a reminder text that I had an appointment at 10, which gave me time to get back in town and make the appointment.

My penultimate appointment I actually missed. I mean, I got all the reminders–the office gives me a card that I can lose on my office desk, emails a month in advance, calls on the phone a couple of days before, and a couple of text messages asking me to confirm the appointment. I saw all the reminders with the dates, and I thought Thursday. I was certain I had a dental appointment on Thursday. However, that date fell on Wednesday.

So I got a text message on Wednesday from my dental hygenist. “Hi, this is Nicole at the dental office. You had an appointment scheduled for 9am, and I wanted to ask if everything is okay.” So I called back immediately, apologetic, and got it rescheduled. As an added bonus to my embarrassment, my iPhone picked up the first name in that message and now assumes that this phone number belongs to Nicole. Which means every couple of months, I get calls from Nicole and texts from Nicole saying, “I can’t wait to see you tomorrow!” I have added this as a contact with the dental office name in it, but it still thinks it’s Nicole. Which means I have preemptively explained this to my beautiful wife many, many times. Just like an adulterer would.

So, as I mentioned, I have a dental appointment today. I got a text reminder of it as I was driving back from my getaway this weekend, and I mentioned it to my wife that it was a 10am appointment the next day, and that I would probably need her help to remember it. Because 23 hours is a long time for me to remember things.

So, of course, yesterday afternoon, I was making plans to go to the gym first thing this morning and to do some marketing afterwards. And I held these plans in mind for much of the evening until I remembered I have a dental appointment today.

An 8am dental appointment, I have fortunately re-discovered. I had been scheduling them for 9am to be assured of making it. I mean, I drop my son off at a little before 8am, and the dentist’s office is a couple of minutes away, but I did not want to be detained in traffic and show up a minute late. Which left me with time to kill in town, preferably not drinking copious amounts of coffee and filling my teeth with pastries for Nicole to contend with. However, we recently agreed that it would be okay for me to schedule for 8 and be a couple minutes late sometimes. So it’s been 8am for a couple of visits, yet I forget.

Why do I have so much trouble with the dental appointments?

I think it’s because I’ve gotten accustomed to a calendar of days, not a calendar of dates.

I mean, my weeks tend to be filled with similar goals, tasks, and travels. The gym, the markets, errands, car servicing, transporting kids, blogging, nap, work, martial arts on weekdays; martial arts sometimes on Satudays and chores; and church, nap, chores on Sundays. So the day of the week more determines what I am to do than the date. Which means when I encounter something requiring a specific date, such as a doctor’s appointment, I get a little flummoxed, and if I get it in the wrong day of the week–when I remember it–I can get it wrong with certainty.

Also, the constant barrage of reminders might have the opposite effect, kind of like magazine subscription renewals–you get too many of them, and you miss the important one when your subscription is actually expiring.

Or it could be a character flaw, but let us dismiss that out of hand, gentle reader. I am an Internet blogger; I have no character to be flawed.

So what are the odds that I have spent too much time this morning blogging about dental appointments and miss or are late to one? Better than average.

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