Although no part of my existence provides even slightest bit of movie material, reading bunch of words I’ve written below I wondered whether I can break it down into, let’s call it that way, a movie structure.

Think of it as one of those long european movies describing mundane existence at the end of which you ask yourself: “What was the point of this?”

– PROLOGUE –

Growing up (and living) watching American movies, I’ve developed three major fears related to traveling to the United States:
– I’ll find myself in the wrong place at the wrong time in the company of some guy so high that the idea of slitting my throat or emptying clip of bullets into my head seems like an excellent anecdote to share later with his buddies over drinks
– I’ll accidentally do something stupid that will result in the treatment by the American judicial system, followed by incarceration where I would soon become a bitch owned by some guy, with a very poor taste in men, called Bubba
– I’ll get sick and will either die in front of the hospital door not being able to pay for treatment or be admitted and get bankrupt along the way.

While I can, at least to a certain extent, apply some preventive measures to the first two scenarios, the third one is pretty much out of my hands. Being the only person more afraid of all things US than me, “my better half” made sure that I do not get on the plane to Chicago without additional travel insurance in my pocket. Although I’ve been dragging my behind all over the world for the last 15 years and during that time remained (despite anything but healthy lifestyle) reasonably healthy, such measure while somewhat over the top, did in fact make sense.

– PROBLEM –

On Tuesday, only few days after the arrival, I was hit by a toothache. It was not unbearable pain, but bad enough to disturb me at work, make sleeping a bit more difficult and chewing on that side of the mouth impossible. It’s not the first time something like that happened (although it happened remarkably rarely having in mind pretty catastrophic teeth quality I’ve drawn at the genetic lottery) so I assumed it will go away during the day. Or the next. Or the one after that.

But, Friday arrived and there was no sign of improvement so I started to worry that the pain may get unbearable over the weekend and then what? I would end up in some emergency room where surely I wouldn’t be treated by some sexy lady from Hollywood movies but some overworked butcher who would do who knows what to me.

– ACTION –

With that in mind I took a look at my insurance and to my disappointment discovered that, when it comes to dental emergencies, expenses are covered only up to 75 Euros. Googling around I could see that any visit to a dentist in US doesn’t cost below some 300 USD while anything more serious (like inflammations, root treatments and such, both of which seemed like a realistic possibilities given the symptoms) can easily take you into the four digit zone.

I’ve asked hotel staff if they had a dentist to recommend but they said that the hotel as such has no dentist (not that I expected it to have) and that none of them is actually from Chicago so they had no personal recommendations either. As a side note, it appears that noone in US is from the place they are currently in. I don’t mean only people working in hotels, where that’s not such unusual thing, but also in finance where due to the nature of my job I work with a lot of people. I guess real locals must be hiding in some secret locations.

Back to my problem. The best they could offer me in the hotel was a hotel doctor but although for a moment I thought about getting a prescription for antibiotics, it didn’t strike me as a complete solution.

So, I could have gambled, hoping things would settle down over the weekend (or at least not get worse) or do something about it. Contrary to my natural instincts I went with the latter and started googling for the dentists close to the office. It didn’t take long to find numerous options and by applying advanced elimination method based on the number of complex algorithms, known in specialized circles as EMMM (eeny, meeny, miny, mo), I picked few and sent e-mails around describing the problem and asking whether I could schedule an appointment. Couple of hours later I got one reply saying I can stop by in couple of hours (others never replied).

The dentist office was really close to the client’s office, no more than 10 minutes on foot, which was great. What was not so great was that it meant it was located in the dead center of the city, or to be more precise, in Michigan Avenue which is Chicago’s main commercial and shopping artery. That in turn meant that there is nothing cheap or even reasonably priced to be found there. The location alone was enough to have my bank balance significantly reduced in my mind but there was no turning back now.

On entering the building I asked the doorman how to get to suite 33-something-something because there were bunch of halls and elevators and I was dangerously close to be running late. He told me to take one elevator to 30th floor, get out, and then another one will take me to 33th floor. The thing is, the building has 30 floors but there is kind of a tower on top which goes all the way to 35th. Of course that the imaginary  accountant in my head, you know, the little bold guy with impeccable thin mustache, round glasses, white shirt and black tie, diligently reduced my bank balance by certain amount with each passing floor so that, once finally reached the 33rd floor, at least in my head, I was virtually broke without even sitting my behind in dentist chair.

– RESOLUTION –

The office itself was everything you’ve seen in movies bunch of times with extremely polite receptionist and elderly but imposing doctor in full dentist regalia. I explained my problem in my best Broken English and once he took a look at the tooth and saw nothing particular going on, asked the nurse to X-ray it. He came back a bit later and said that he can see nothing worth opening the tooth for but since the tooth itself seems a bit “taller” than the others, decided to “cut it down to size” a bit so that there is less mechanical impact while chewing.

With that done we were basically finished so I went back to the reception where I commented and admired the view of the city they have (truly spectacular, covering downtown Chicago with the river winding between buildings, including my office and the Trump Tower). As for my problem, he would prescribe an antibiotic which would take care of the inflammation and consequently the pain as well.

Since the matter of money wasn’t coming up and my virtual accountant was getting more and more nervous about it, slightly terrified I finally asked how much do I owe him and his answer momentarily sent both me and my accountant into the state of shock: “Nothing“. Well – I was left speechless and at that moment probably looked even more retarded than usual (dropped jaw, bulging eyes and all). “But“, I said, “what do you mean – nothing? You made an appointment on short notice, checked the whole thing, x-rayed the tooth...”. He said it’s nothing special and that it’s not worth charging for. I couldn’t resist saying that this defies worldwide stereotype of dentist visit in US being anything but cheap, let alone free of charge thing. “Well“, he said, “then we’ve done something today to dispel that notoriety” or something like that.

After I thanked him once again (or many times, I really can’t remember) I stumbled out of the office and went back to work while my in-head accountant, adding back already written off funds, was (totally out of character) wiping tears of joy from his face.

Since I told a client earlier where I’m going and why I’ll be away for couple of hours, as soon as I entered the office she asked me how was it and when I told her the whole story, she got the same shocked expression I myself demonstrated just minutes ago and said that she has never in her life heard of the dentist not charging.

– ENDING –

That afternoon the pain subsided a bit but I wasn’t sure if it’s for real or some kind of autosuggestion thing so after work I went to a pharmacy to pick up the antibiotic, just in case.

I found it interesting that the prescribed pills needed to be “prepared” (whatever that means) so I had to wait for about 10 minutes during which I thought they will probably charge me something for it, having some rough figure of 10 dollars in mind. Back at the counter the lady said: “That will be 9…” and at that split second I’m thinking how I made a pretty good estimate. That split second came and went, followed with the rest of her sentence: “...6 dollars and 49 cents“. At that point all the smugness in me disappeared and a glint could be seen in the small tear that appeared in the corner of my eye while I unhappily gave her my credit card.

But overall, let’s be honest, it could have been much worse. You win some, lose some but if you end up in the positive (well, relative positive), it’s all good.

I never used the prescribed antibiotic because the toothache and the swelling went away on its own but I still keep that bottle of antibiotics with me, just in case.

– EPILOGUE (Couple of weeks later) –

A look into the future (which has already happened because, you know, this is not a live “as it happens” broadcast) shows that when the very same thing happened again back home, I paid 6 dollars for the antibiotics.

Just sayin’