I could’ve saved myself quite a bit of time, money, and humiliation had I known these four things before tailgating my kid’s dental check up.
- Tailgating culture is virtually nonexistent in pediatric dentistry
This became clear to me as my son and I pulled into the dentist parking lot at sunrise and I saw that no one else was grilling or playing cornhole to pregame my son’s 9:30 AM appointment. The parking lot was completely empty. At first, I assumed we were just the first tailgaters to arrive, but as the hours passed only a handful of cars entered the lot, all driven by employees of the dentist’s office. Each one parked and walked directly into the office after briefly regarding my expensive, meticulously planned tailgate setup with a noted lack of enthusiasm, if not outright bewilderment.
“Have I made a costly miscalculation?” I privately wondered as my son and I watched dental footage on the big screen TV I’d propped up in my truck bed, eating some of the bratwursts I’d grilled for Appointment Day. “Is tailgating not a thing in the world of children’s dentistry?” As it turns out, it is not.
- Alcohol is not permitted on the premises of most pediatric dental practices
Apparently, drinking alcohol in a dentist’s waiting room is just as frowned upon as tailgating in the parking lot (and perhaps more so). My misunderstanding of the dentist’s alcohol policies led to a deeply uncomfortable confrontation with the woman working the front desk, who became quite upset upon learning that the cooler my son and I were lugging into the waiting room was filled with beer (and sodas, for those not of drinking age). Of course, hindsight is 20/20, but considering that sports stadiums don’t permit outside food and beverages, I should’ve realized that a pediatric dentist office likely wouldn’t either.
I maintain that this conflict could’ve been avoided if the dentist had simply placed a sign out front explicitly stating that alcohol was forbidden in the office, but even so, I’ll accept the blame here. I clearly didn’t do enough research on how to tailgate this sort of thing.
- Rooting for my kid and against the dentist, was a position at odds with itself
At the time, I failed to register that a dental appointment is mutually beneficial for both the child patient (who receives dental care from a trained professional) and the pediatric dentist (who makes a living providing dental care to children). It is not a competitive event, but rather a win-win exchange of dental care services for an insurance-supplemented benefit and reasonable copay fee. Though I’m the biggest fan of my son I know, I now understand it would’ve been more appropriate to root for both him and the dentist to succeed. Shouting “dentists suck”, though intended as good-natured, competitive taunting, was the wrong way to express support for my son.
In retrospect, I also regret placing so much pressure on my son to “win” the appointment, and to have no mercy on the dentist who’d be investigating his mouth for cavities or other dental irregularities. My son grew very intent on “winning”, and would spend hours in his room training for the appointment (how? I do not know, as I did not want to distract him during his practice). I quickly learned that my misunderstanding only caused trouble for everyone involved, particularly the dentist, whom my son bit on the finger with enough force to draw blood. No, nobody “won” this appointment, but one person could be said to have “lost” it: me.
- The amount of gear I brought to tailgate a 20 minute dental appointment was overkill
Portable grill, propane tank, party tent, lawn chairs, foldable tables, enough leftover BBQ to feed an army…I spared no expense on my tailgate set up. It took around 20 minutes for the dentist to finish cleaning and inspecting my son’s teeth, and well over an hour to pack up my tailgate. With the eyes of the entire dental practice’s staff glaring from the waiting room windows as my son and I loaded our leftover food and drink into the trunk of our car, it felt much, much longer.
I wouldn’t say my tailgate was a total bust, but it could’ve gone a lot smoother if I’d known what I know now. All I can do is take what I’ve learned from this tailgating experience and apply it when my son’s next dental checkup comes around.
