On Thursday, I went to the dentist.
It was near the end of the day, and the hygienist who had the misfortune of working on my teeth, was trying hard to act like somebody who liked her job. She was asking me a series of questions that were designed to suggest interest, but it was clear that she just wasn’t into it.
The radio was playing a loop of hot adult contemporary singles and a huge five-foot tall red toothbrush leaned against the wall in the corner. The hygienist made a few comments about the weather, telling me it was a grey day and that she wished it would just hurry up and rain. She had sad eyes, and when I asked her to tell me a little bit about herself she sighed.
In a Polish accent, she said, “Oh, it’s pretty boring, just nine to five every day, you know, you come to work, you go home from work.” She was staring out the window as she said this, looking past all the activity on Bloor Street, focusing instead, I think, on some distant horizon that only she could see.