paging el dentista doctor dahbeed

beed referenced in an earlier post that he had pulled 16 teeth in his dental career. is beed a dentist? hell no! did he pull 16 teeth? hell yes! before you rush to judgement let beed get the story out. this beed character is sumpin' else, no?

the lovely lady above is a honduran dentist named emma gutierrez. she is a sweetheart. sure she coulda used a little work on her unibrow but beed always thought she was cute as hell and always was her assistant any time she worked with us.

our team would always bring doctors, nurses, pharmacists, and dentists but sometimes we would outsource some work to a local. we paid them more than they would make in their own office but it was hard work and pitiful accomodations.

as dahbeed has stated earlier, he's done every job on the team but has probably worked in the dental clinic more than anywhere. let's define dental clinic for everyone who is imagining their dentist's office. unh-unh.....not even close. the mission had some old dental chairs that they would pack out to the village the week before we got there. no fancy overhead lights. one of the assistants jobs was to stand there with a flashlight and point into the mouth of the patient so the dentist could clearly see what they were working on.

beed used to joke with emma, who loved beed by the way, always insisting that he be her assistant, because number one, beed spoke spanish and knew all of the instruments names in spanish and two because women like dahbeed, he don't know why, he guesses it's cuz he's foolish enough to cut up with them. beed has that intangible. yes, by now you are rolling your eyes and rightfully so but it's just something that beed has discovered in his 46 years on this orb.

back to our cutting up. beed used to tell emma "mire, mi foco es un llave" look, my flashlight is a key. emma would say "porque" why. beed replied "mire, solo tengo movar mi foco cerca de la boca y abrirlo" look, i only have to move my flashlight near their mouth and they open it. and it did work every time. even if emma was not ready beed would point his flashlight at the patient's mouth and it would open. beed would move it away and they would close it. beed would sometimes do it like 5 times in a row and have emma in stitches. is beed a twisted fokker or what?

emma was vertically challenged so she had a small wooden box she stood on. more on the clinic. no fillings, no cleaning, no braces.....solamente extracciones...only extractions. and the people were more than happy about that. when was the last time you had a bad toothache and could do nothing about it because you couldn't afford to visit a dentist?

we worked like an assembly line. emma would shoot up four people with the numbing agent and by the time she finished with the fourth one the first would be numb enough to work on. one of dahbeed's jobs as an assistant was to make an x on the number of the tooth to be pulled. they all had a dental card and it had a picture of both rows of teeth. each tooth has a number. emma would say "diez y seis dahbeed" and beed would make an x on tooth number 16. that way when they got back over there beed would look at the card and say "diez y seis, mi amor" 16 my love.

for any of the long time readers you will remember a story about the only white boy on the bus. that was the trip where beed left his money under a mattress in a hotel and then had to frantically go back to get it. he then had to navigate back to the village we were supposed to work in. the village was named las trojes. it was actually the same village beed worked in on his very first trip to honduras back in '86. but this was 8 years later.

anyhoo, we had one gringo dentist and emma. of course beed claimed emma cuz hell, beed likes women, he's made no bones about it. and if he's going to be standing in one place for 12 hours he would much rather do it with a pretty lady than some hairy assed man.

our dentists would see around 65 patients a day. think about that one. and many of them had multiple extractions. each dentist would usually pull over 200 teeth per day. and you better not have a weak stomach. there is much blood involved in the pulling of teeth. no nice little sink to spit into....just a cardboard box to the side of the chair. one of the first phrases dahbeed learned in spanish was "por favor, no escupa en el piso, escupa en la caja" please don't spit on the floor, spit in the box.

anyhoo, one day it was around 6:00 and it looked like the good old dental clinic was gonna miss supper again. we probably still had around 20 people to see. beed could see that emma was dog tired. this was like our third 12 hour day and it takes a toll even on the young.

one of the baptist rules is that men are not allowed to wear shorts. god forbid a honduran see beed's knees and ankles....that would be an express train to hell. until beed went into management he wore shorts every day to work, even in the winter. so this was a hardship on him. and since the places we worked were usually hot as hell beed didn't want to wear jeans. so he got a friend that worked at a hospital to hook him up with some surgical scrubs. they are extremely lightweight and very loose fitting. just perfect for hot weather.

so when beed is standing there with a flashlight wearing surgical scrubs, the hondurans have no idea that he is not a dentist. anyhoo, emma has been working on this older gentleman for like 5 minutes and couldn't get that damn tooth to budge. beed axes emma "tu quieres, yo hacerlo?" do you want me to do it? she replied "si, tu puedes" yes, if you can.

now beed has watched thousands of teeth be pulled. it is not rocket science. once you get the pliers on the tooth you kind of rotate your hand in a figure 8 motion trying to loosen each one of the roots.

so emma put the pliers on the tooth correctly and held the instrument in place while beed put his hands on the instrument then she let go. holy shit! now beed finds out why emma wuz struggling with this older guy. it was hard as hell to get it out. beed eventually had to hold the guys head in a headlock so there was no give as he was working his figure 8. finally that sucka came out and beed was elated. his first extraction.

a heavenly glow came over the dental clinic and you could hear faint choral chanting getting louder as it approached the clinic. beed is just bullshitting about that but he ain't bullshitting about pulling the teeth.

so, the rest of the night, emma would shoot 'em up, put the instrument in place and let beed pull them. emma thanked beed profusely as her poor forearm was worn out. beed told her she could pay him off later that night......hehehehehe. nothing happened you perverts, this was a mission trip and we weren't even allowed to wear short pants. beed wuz just joking with emma and she got a good laugh out of it.

beed never pulled another tooth. but it still remains a memory he will never forget. "are you a dentist? no but i slept at a holiday inn express last night and play one in honduras"

your buddy,

el dentista,

doctor dahbeed

p.s. if you are ever in dire straights and can't see your local dentist, roll on out to the beed casa and he'll hook you up homie.