A Window To The Soul

He was a flashy young man; tight corn row hair, silk button up shirt, diamond ear ring, dress shoes resting on the dental chair. He was a little perturbed to have to remove his high tech blue tooth piece from his ear, but he had his Blackberry phone with loud hip hop ringer on loud enough so that the entire oral surgery clinic in the county hospital could hear in case a friend called.

Quite frequently in a different setting, where people pay for whatever medical care they receive, someone dressed much more modestly than this young man would compose himself, be respectful, and behave appropriately to the situation. When someone who pays for their own health care opens their mouth, the great majority of the time you see relatively clean and reasonably restored teeth, even if they cannot afford the latest cell phone or stylish clothing.

When this young man opens his mouth, the first impression you get is the overwhelming stench of rotten teeth and pus. Somehow, smell can travel faster than sight. Next you see teeth rotting down to the gums, with pus either surrounding the decayed teeth or exiting in a hole in the gums. You know that one of the motivating factors for all of the flash on the outside is to get women to intimately kiss inside that sewer, you know he is probably successful in this endeavor, you wonder. After she has been "awed" by the outside, can she not see through into the interior of this man when he simple opens his lips to give the first look into the inside. A window to his soul.

He most likely will not cooperate. You know that because he's not paying for you to fish the rotting teeth from his rancid gums. He therefore must be entitled to this care. He will most likely whine and thrash and moan; and if that wasn't enough, he will likely become angry with you because he is experiencing discomfort. Obviously, someone that is entitled to health care should be privileged enough to receive the magic kind, where nothing causes discomfort and narcotics fill the pockets while walking out the door. He may or may not be upset that in addition to being rid of the decayed teeth, he isn't getting the rest of his teeth fixed for free at this visit. After all, he doesn't have to pay for his care, so why shouldn't he be entitled to have all of his care whenever is most convenient for him. It certainly is not his fault that he neglected his mouth for years, refusing to seek treatment when he had pain and his teeth were falling apart. No, its societies fault for not arranging a limousine to pick him up at his doorstep, or for not providing a dentist to come to his house to fix him up.

Disclaimer: I do not mean to say that everyone who is on welfare is ungrateful, I am surprised by the sence of entitlement and how ungrateful many who are on welfare are.