So, it was a stressful week so far. Grace and I packed up and left the farm property. We were both optimistic. The plague seemed to have been back, and it was time to interact with the world again, including a trip to the Dentist after months of erratic closures. I have been with the firm for eighteen years, the longest dental association in my life. I wondered what the people I normally deal with would look like.

Or so we thought.

I found myself marveling at the construction activity along I-66 heading into town- it literally goes from Haymarket to Arlington, eight lanes dwindling to two as you approach the city.

I had a long deferred visit to the Dentist to look at the damage incurred by the face-first fall to the wooden floor a couple months ago that knocked my nose back into alignment and kicked the veneer off my front teeth.

So much going on- the old platform cabinet bed I had upstairs went away, destined for somewhere that needed one. And then there was the world.

This event required planning. I have been off the property only five times since the lockdowns and the rest of the remarkable restrictions were imposed. Two of those did not require a face covering, so the current emphasis is a bit alien. Worse, I was going to see a dentist, an individual with whom it is impossible to avoid dental intimacy.

It was fun in Arlington. I enjoyed spending time with my son, and the look and feel of the grand old building was evocative to say the least. While sitting on the patio in front of the unit, I changed greetings with some passing residents. I am getting soft. I can barely categorize them as “renters” or “owners.”

The steady roar of the traffic on Rt-50 brought back a host of memories, and the strange site of the green cover on what should have been glimmering light blue. We treated ourselves to a take-out dinner from the place old pal Tracy O’Grady came to after her time in the District. The Green Pig Bistro is the name of the place, and our food was great and service superb. That was the prep for the night and the inevitable ten-o’clock appointment with Dental Doom.

I won’t bore you with an account of First Contact with the masked world. I could not recognize the office- the waiting room is closed off and patients are instructed to proceed to the office one command of a cell phone. Everyone crowding the narrow walkway that served the little service cubicles is outsized in their multiple layers of sanitary cloth, head made grotesque by shelf atop mask, with magnifying eyepieces for the Dentist.

I was ushered into the hyper-sensitive nature of the practice with my own mask, a token of acceptance of the clinical requirements. Still, as an initial encounter with the world of Phase 3 Virginia, it was pretty amazing. The diagnosis was two parts, one involving nine-hours of traditional oral technique and the other to just pull and replace with implants.

You can imagine my mind reeling. A local dentist in Culpeper seems to make a lot of sense. So, the top ten list is getting full, and this one could have been performed by aliens.

I asked my son to get me back down to the country where things seem to still make sense. He was kind enough to do so.

– Vic