The Orthodontist part III
We arrived at ten to five in plenty of time for our appointment at five o’clock. “The appointment is at five twenty five”, the receptionist said. Olivier was really, really cross with his stupid mother again. He'd just bought "Need for Speed Underground" and wanted to go home to play it. We went for a walk in the park while I explained that I’ve been making appointments in this country for nearly twenty years and it’s odd that I get it wrong in the same place twice.

Meanwhile back at the orthodontist’s…. we answered questions which were fed into a computer and given a blue card with Olivier’s details in lots of pretty colours. Then into the waiting room. “Hey Olivier, weren’t you the one who answered the question about your date of birth. Why have they put September?” I victoriously went back to the receptionist who just crossed out the month and wrote in February!!. Now I have proof they are not very good at figures and things. Olivier and I decided that I would ask for the next appointment to be written onto a card by them. After about half an hour of Olivier swearing under his breath in French and out loud in English we were ushered into a small office and asked to wait.

More swearing and playing with light switch. After a ‘few’ minutes a very charming young lady came in and started to fill out the hundreds of forms required by the French administration. She then disappeared in order to find the camera to take pictures of Olivier and his teeth. Ten minutes later, she reappeared with camera and device to hold Olivier’s lips out of the way, which amused him (thank goodness).

More waiting and them the orthodontist came in. A most charming and apologetic young man who explained the problems of the surgery and why there was so much waiting. I bet he wins all the Mums over. He had a look at Olivier’s brace and explained what he planned to do and filled in the rest of the pretty blue form. The charming young lady came back and showed us the figures (ouch) and gave us a contract and made us an appointment and apologized again. She wrote the appointment on a card without me asking. Total time 2 hours!!!!

Next appointment 1st December at five fifteen.