I asked my office manager why we have four subscriptions to Reader’s Digest….her response, they are routinely “five finger discounted” from the reception area……not Vogue or Veranda or Golf Digest, Road and Track, we tried the Robb Report for a time, but we’re Mississauga not Rosedale………and yet, Reader’s Digest disappears……..go figure……which is what I tried to do.
By William Ecenbarger
From
Reader’s Digest, February 1997
From
behind a door comes the whine of a high-speed drill. When my name is called, I
am ushered into an examining room and welcomed with a nutcracker handshake by
the dentist,a graying-at-the-temples man.
Soon I am
staring toward the white cork ceiling while my teeth are probed,poked, tapped,
and tugged. The numbers of my teeth are called out to an assistant, who jots
the information on a chart: “No. 11, crown; No. 13, M-O-D; No. 14,
M-0…” A few minutes later comes the verdict: I need 11 crowns, plus other
work. It will cost $8347.
“Do
this and you will have no worries about your teeth for the next 30 years,”
the dentist purrs. Somehow I doubt that. Then he adds, “You and I are
going to become great friends.”
Somehow I
doubt that, too. I was there in Dayton, Ohio, as part of an assessment of the
consistency and fairness of American dentistry. Since Americans spend about $42
billion a year on their teeth, it seemed like a reasonable assignment: visit 50
dentists, show them your teeth and a set of X rays, and ask each what needs to
be done.
