Women on a mission

We could have been in a pick up truck for all the class we had. We had a mission, to get our teeth updated! Neither Fran nor I had had a cleaning and check up in the last year. Shirley lost a crown while packing in Chicago to meet up with Fran at Mar y Sol, where Lora has some friends among the regulars. They arrived at my house with their noisy golf cart, running rough, about 50 minutes before we were due at the dentist's office. Francisco J. Canales Dominguez is an oral surgeon with the Navy who has opened a private practice with a newly outfitted office. Very nice.
So I told him we'd be there at 5 pm. The girls come in as I'm wrapping things up and wait until I tell Lora to get in her carrier...zoom, she does. I picked up the wrong ATM card, and Fran went back inside to get it. Then we were off!
Their golf cart is a whole lot faster than mine because they got big tires put on it with a jacked up chassis. It also presents a problem for Shirley and me to get in and out of. The back is higher, so Shrley takes it, and as we are going against the wind, Shirley is saying she's gonna drive home because Fran is stalling out when she slows and then jackrabbiting! Hold on girls, Fran shouts, and Shirley holds on to her girls. Wink wink.
Along they way, against the wind, we shout to each other about how petrified we are. We all hate going to the dentist.
We arrive 5 minutes early, enough time to see the beautiful hotel lobby with a coffee shop that sells the kinds of things that dentists hate and the new setting for Cazuela M & J at the building's entrance. We sit down and the dentista opens his door. Shirley makes the sign of the cross and enters. Fran goes to the coffee shop, checks it out and brings me a bottled Starbucks cappucino.
I am called by Canales Dominguez to tell Shirley that he is going to clean the root canal, repost and build up and seat the crown. It will cost $90.
I return to the lobby and Fran and I yell to Shirley a few times over the space at the top of the wall. We could hear everything that was going on. Sheiza, she said. That's shit in German. Shirley is not German.
I am called back in to translate. It's going to take 45 minutes. Oi vey, she says as I leave. This is a woman who made the sign of the cross. I sit back down. 45 minutes later to the minute, exactly, Shirley walks out smiling. He's so gentle, she says, smiling. Fran goes in with me.
He says it will cost $40. We taunt Fran, too, a payback from Shirley! Mmyaumya, she responds with the dentist's hands in her mouth. Then it's my turn.
I only have pesos, I say. He quotes me 650 pesos. Ok, but I'm a resident. He smiles and tells me to sit down. The first time he told me to rinse, I just swallowed. Hey, I forgot to reach for the water cup. I was stressing. I heard the girls leave. No assuring taunting for me!
Soon I am done. He notes I have a small cavity that can wait. It has waited two years, really.
I'm done and don't have 50 pesos. He can't make change, so I get off for 500 pesos. The girls are back...they went to get a beer for Shirley's post dental nerves. They want to get out of there but the dentist calls me in to translate. A gringo woman broke a tooth badly. He examines. He tells me what needs to be done. She want so know how much. $300 route canal, post and build up, porcelain crown. She says she is leaving on the 14th, yadayada, the doc could get it done, the lab could be paid for a rush job, yadayada. The girls want to go. Shirley at the wheel, pulls up curbside so I don't have to step down, and repeats in front of the drug store for me.
And we're off into the night with the wind at our backs. I inside and let Lora out of her pet carrier. She sniffs my things, decides I haven't been near a dog or food, and goes to her bed in my bedroom. I join her but first brush my teeth. End of story!