Grannies Gone Wild #61

Joe has watched "Grannies Gone Wild" 55 times so far this summer. Watch the episode HERE.

 

Cheyenne: Well, becoming a dentist just seems like something you do to just make money. And I kinda think that I might want to help people instead.

Brock: Oh, you... you don't think dentists help people?

Something that I don't talk about nearly enough on this blog is the argument—perhaps the central argument, depending on what angle you view it from—presented in the episode of what it means to "help people" in this messy, messed-up world. Brock takes offense at Cheyenne's claim that "dentists don't help people" and that they are just there to "make money." This is a really interesting mindset, the more I think about it! And the episode doesn't do shit with it!

I get that Brock would be offended. There's no way he's spending a decade of his life learning how to be a dentist if he's doing it "just for the money," right? You'd have to be a despicably craven individual to go through that whole process just to be rich. You need to be motivated for the right reasons, at least originally, in order to survive in such an arduous field.

And yet... I also don't think it's impossible that most, or maybe even all, dentists turn their motivation from help to money after a certain amount of time. We know very little about the current state of Brock's professional activity, desires, motivations, or goals, at least based on "Grannies Gone Wild." All we know is that he is afraid of gingivitis and that he spends hours of a random weekday morning neglecting his professional duties in favor of criticizing his daughter's amateur desires.

There are plenty of people to help, and yet where was Brock? I'm particularly heated about this, because, as you may remember, I've been dealing with my own dental issues this summer (maybe Reba is rotting me in more ways than one). I had the large hole in my mouth cemented over temporarily, and a redo on the root canal scheduled for July 6th. July 5th they contacted and rescheduled for July 13th. July 11th they texted me to reschedule for another two weeks, July 27th. The cement, at this point, is falling out at a rapid clip, leaving my mouth ripe for infection. The only root canal doctor in the office had an "emergency," necessitating the rescheduling, but c'mon. I've been watching a dentist on my television screen all summer. An "emergency" could be as simple as driving his wife to jury duty.

Even if it's not bullshit, and the dentist really did have a medical emergency, then there was absolutely no guidance or assistance provided as a consequence to the unfortunate rescheduling. I had to make my own decision to schedule a re-cementing of the hole, and I had to fight tooth and nail (pun probably avoidable oh well) to NOT be charged for the re-cementing, as it WASN'T MY FAULT that I had to get it done in the first place. They still dinged me $40 for a dentist to make the decision to re-cement, a decision I could've made on my own, and on top of this, they couldn't even commit to being able to fix my tooth at the next scheduled appointment (90% chance that it'll turn into another evaluation and another scheduling of an additional appointment).

So you tell me. Is this collective of dentists helping me, or are they just doing it for my money? Get fucking real. They're operating in the same late-stage capitalistic hellscape that I am. They're just pumping as much money as they can out of me and out of the insurance company that I also pay for. If they were really trying to help me, then this office—an office that hilariously and at this point ironically has the word "EMERGENCY" right there in its title—would have fucking helped me already instead of leaving me out here chewing everything on the left side of my mouth like a fucking goon for well over a month.

I'm sure Cheyenne's motivations are a bit more complicated—note how perfect her teeth are, and note the almost certain fact that she has never had to pay for dental work in her entire life due to her father owning his practice, and yet she still sees dental work as little more than profiteering—but I still come down on her side of the argument, at the end of the day. Dentistry is a fucking business, and nothing more. It's a fucking sad truth, that our medical system is designed to be for-profit—like, it's fucking abhorrent and immoral and will most likely be a huge factor in the ultimate downfall of our American society—and yet it is indeed truth.

It's true for the shysters who are holding my balls in a clamp over this root canal issue, and it's even true for the seeming benevolent dentists who make greater efforts to "help" people. A few hours before today's re-cementing, my daughters were having a very different dental experience. A simple cleaning, everything looked great (my kids don't drink juice), the dentist was a young woman who was extremely competent and worked really well with kids and just did a pretty spectacular job overall, 5/5 pukes, no complaints. But you know what? It doesn't change the fact that the hospital this took place in exists solely to make money. If they didn't make money, then they would close. Simple as that. That they get to pretend that it's a "helping" endeavor is great, and makes the whole process run smoothly, but the facts are that it comes down to money.

(And even this is ignoring the fact that a big reason my kids behave okay at this particular dentist is because their paternal grandmother is the office manager! Regardless of his mother's feelings on the subject, I'm sure Van Jr. similarly had nothing bad to say about grandpa's dental cleanings before he was kidnapped by his maternal aunt and taken on a "road trip" to Utah.)

Look, Brock tries to paper over the insult by making a joke about gingivitis videos, but I can tell that this truth shakes him to his core. He may or may not do good work, and he may or may not need to tell himself that he's doing this for the right reasons, but the fact of the matter is that the only reason he can pay two mortgages and one daughter's college tuition and the bill for the very expensive private investigator who is looking for his other daughter and his grandson three states away is because HE IS A DENTIST MAKING MONEY. And if he's gonna get that money whether he's at work or whether he's shirking his responsibilities to watch old ladies work their non-thonged butts in his face, then helping people ain't got shit to do with it.

Stick it to him, Cheyenne. Don't be a dentist. Be a social worker. It's a lot easier to pretend that you're actually helping people in that profession. Actually... let's stop before we get into that. Not today. My tooth is hurting too much for me to turn the mirror toward myself.