During my three and a half decades working as a dentist, I have been assisted by numerous ladies varying in age from sixteen to over seventy years. ‘Carly’ was one of them. When she joined me in a practice west of London, it was the first time she had worked in a dental practice. She was a quick learner, but far from discreet.
When we had a new patient, we recorded the person’s details on the outside of a record card. One day, a smart-looking woman sat down in my dental chair, a new patient, and I asked her for her personal details: name, date of birth, address, and so on. Carly entered the information on the record card. When we had finished, Carly asked the patient:
“Are you M.R.S. or M.I.S.S?”
The lady replied:
“Miss.”
Quick as a flash, Carly said:
“I can’t see why you ain’t married. You ain’t ugly or anythink.”
The lady took this quite well. She could see that Carly meant no harm.
One Monday morning, Carly arrived and said to me:
“Ere, look at this”
She stuck out her tongue, which had a shiny silver-coloured metal stud pierced through it. I was lost for words for a moment, and then asked her if it was uncomfortable.
“No, it ain’t,” she replied, “It makes eating spaghetti difficult, though. It gets caught up on it.”
All morning, whenever a patient sat in my dental chair, she would tap the patient’s shoulder, and then say: “Wht d’ya think?” before sticking her tongue out to display her stud to the person in the chair. Most of the patients were either politely complimentary of just smiled. By now, my regular patients had got used to Carly and her friendly but cheeky manners.
Another day, Carly arrived at work. Very excitedly, she told me:
“You’ll never guess how much I paid for a large pack of prawns at Tesco’s.”
“Four pounds?” I guessed.
“No, just a quid.”
“That’s a good bargain,” I said.
“What me and me boyfriend do,” Carly explained, “is we swap the labels on the packets in the chiller so that we get the special offer prices instead.”
“Be careful,” I advised.
On yet another occasion, Carly arrived at work looking distressed. I asked her what was wrong.
“I crashed me boyfriend’s car.”
“But you haven’t got a license have you, Carly?”
“No, but I was drunk. I got in his car and drove it backwards into a lamppost.”
I am sure that the boyfriend was not pleased because throughout the day Carly was rung up by him on her mobile ‘phone. She would go out into the corridor, but because she was screaming at her chap so loudly, everyone could hear her.
During one appointment, I was beginning to scale (remove the dental tartar or calculus) a lady’s teeth. After a few minutes, while I changed instruments the lady, a well-dressed woman with airs and graces, asked me:
“Excuse me, Mr Yamey, but what exactly are you doing to my teeth?”
Before I could answer, Carly replied quickly:
“E’s cleaning the crap off yer teeth.”
The patient seemed quite happy with this simple summary.
Despite Carly’s occasional rather undignified comments, she was an excellent assistant. Patients appreciated her unpretentious, friendly, open approach and the fact that she was rarely silent. After a few months, when she had gained some experience, Carly left our practice to take up a better paid position in another dental practice. Some weeks after she had been working there, she dropped into our surgery to say ‘hallo’. I asked her how she was getting on in her new job. She replied:
“It’s ok, but they have told me not to open my mouth during the day.”
Picture source: “Der Zahnarzt in der Karikatur” by E Hinrich (1963)
yamey 