Every day an orthodontist appointment is scheduled, something unpleasant happens.

I noticed this trend about three months ago, and it is still proving true.  Seems like each day I schedule an orthodontist appointment for my older daughter, that day becomes crazy.   Some type of emergency or terrible inconvenience will happen.   And these events tend to be attracted to those particular days.

The most benign, but nerve-wrecking, are the projects, meetings and  practices that were not scheduled when I made the appointment but have become important and pressing to the class, group or team involved.   The day Liz got her lower braces, I had to return her after school for a sudden must-do activity that apparently could not be accomplished any other day than that one day.   We were informed it had been scheduled the night before, so there was no time to change the dreaded excursion into the underbelly of the orthodontist’s office.   Okay, I guess we could have re-scheduled.   Have you tried to get an ortho appointment in recent months?  She is supposed to have monthly visits.  It is celebratory if one can manage that.  Often it ends up being more like 6-8 weeks apart.  And how dare you ever try to change an appointment the evening before or *gasp* the day of.   You can do it; it will cost you the same amount as keeping the appointment. And you will be obliged to pay again for the scheduled new time.

Last month was a truly dreadful day.   There were people working at the house.  They arrived way after they were expected, and were not finished by the time for my younger daughter, Hannah, to arrive home; which happened to be the time I meant to pick up Liz from her school as late as possible without being late for the orthodontist.   I  rushed out to do that then returned home to collect Hannah and still not be late for the appointment.  During the flurry of arrivals and departures, Hannah discovered our cat sitting near the front door hunched over.  She brought him in with her, plopped him into my lap, and announced, “Something is bad wrong with Tigger.”    His leg and chest had been injured during his outside journeying.  That added squeezing in an emergency visit to the vet.

We found a suitable box for Tigger, bundled everyone into the car, dropped Liz off at the ortho office, asked permission to leave her there during the appointment,  delivered the cat to the vet for exam,  and gathered Liz from the ortho.  By which time the phone was ringing with a call from the vet saying they had finished exams on the cat and he was ready for pick up.  After that, it was past dinner time and we were done in.

A small note: I am working on an entry about Tigger’s adventures.

The latest hex from the curse of the ortho was this week.  I had secured one of the preferred and hard-to-acquire after-school appointment slots.  The day had been busy, but nothing alarming occurred.   Until Hannah didn’t show up home at her normal time.   Just as I noticed this, the phone rang.   There had been a change in our route, and she had missed getting on the bus.   Once again,  a day with an orthodontist appointment had become frenzied and chaotic.  I asked myself, “Why?” and shook my fists toward the sky, falling to my knees….  Not in reality; indulging in a little creative license there.   But that was the day I realized the days with orthodontist appointments are destined to end in ruin.   Another one to file under “The best laid plans of mice and men..”