Last week we took West to the dentist. We mostly did this because we are scared of our pediatrician.

None of you hot losers warned me before I became a parent that when you are with child, you have to take said child to the pediatrician every Monday and every third Friday for regular check ups. I currently receive so many text reminders from the doctor's office that I think it technically constitutes an affair at this point.

The main reason for all of the appointments, as far as I can tell, is so a room full of strangers can stab my child with needles and then immediately leave so the only person with whom he associates the torture is his loving father. I have spent so much money in post-check-up candy and toy bribery to make amends with this child that it has actually cancelled out the Great Depression. Google it. There is no longer any historical reference to any economic collapse from the last 100 years.

You're welcome, my grandparents.

I have also noticed that most appointments we attend are just an exercise where a professional asks us basic questions about our offspring and then writes down our answers. I don't know if they do anything with this information, but it seems imperative that they record it.

We recently overreacted to the fact that our friends' child who was born the same month as West was saying more words than West. We then booked an infinite number of appointments with a very nice woman named Hillary who began charging us the gdp of Canada to come to our house every ten days and ask us what new words West has said since she was last there. Then she'd take an hour to give us helpful tips like, "teach him new words" and "say those new words to him."

I felt like a bad parent when I finally pulled the plug on the whole thing, telling Skylar I didn't think this was a good use of money that could be put toward paying for more streaming services.

But I simply had to make a dentist appointment for this child and his teeth that will by design fall out within the next decade. This is because basically the moment West emerged from heaven's clouds wearing a cherubim sash and holding a rifle, our pediatrician began asking us whether he had seen a dentist yet.

For a while, I argued with her that he was too young to need this. But as his teeth surfaced, one by one, her look of judgment became more uncomfortable every time she inquired about the dentist.

Skylar tried to call the pediatric dentist the parents of the magical talking child I referenced above use, but they told him their next available appointment was in year of our lord 2096, and we could ugly by then.

Finally, I asked my dentist whether they see children or just extremely hot grownups and they confirmed kids were welcome and "we don't just see hot people," which was rude.

My dentist office is in the heart of downtown Salt Lake City (DON'T STALK US UNLESS YOU HAVE MONEY), and what this means is the office is tiny.

I had planned to take West by myself to the appointment even though the demon Pazuzu apparently possessed my body when I scheduled this for 8:00 AM o'clock in the morning. But the morning of the appointment, just as I was packing West up in his 600-pound car seat that has permanently injured both of my arms and back over the past 24 months, Skylar told me he was going to meet us there, "because I want to see his little body in a dentist chair."

Skylar drove separately so he could take off at the end of the appointment to go to work or affairs, and I was wondering where he was twenty minutes into this as West sat on my lap watching a presentation from the hygienist who demonstrated for him the harmlessness of various dental tools like she was about to commit him to her Tupperware downline.

Suddenly, Skylar burst into the TINY dental room, apologized for being late, perched himself in a corner, and the pulled out of a bag a FULL breakfast fit for a growing boy in a family of wrestlers.

I'm not kidding you about this breakfast. Loaded french toast with so much whipped cream there is now a dairy crisis in America. Bacon. Fruit. And he sat himself in this dentist office, scarfing it down like it was his final meal on death row.

In this dentist office.

I have never, in my life, seen someone bring food to the dentist. I think I assumed that was illegal.

And I went to apologize for my husband's lapse of compliance with basic social norms, but then he started gabbing with the hygienist and they were so friendly and familiar with one another that it occurred to me if there are any rules in this office, they probably make an exception for him.

I've been going to this office/hygienist/dentist for 13 years. I don't know a single person's name there. I don't think I could even recognize my dentist in the wild.

But Skylar, who has probably only gone there about four times ever because he forgets to make appointments for himself, appeared to have a relationship with this woman so close I'm not positive they didn't get married.

He's just like this.

A month before West was born a woman came to our house, gave me a baby present to pass to Skylar when he got home from work, and said "we all just love Skylar so much. He really is one of the best people I've ever met."

When I asked this woman who she was and what was the nature of their relationship, I swear to gay God she said, "I'm his barista."

His barista.

Have I ever told you that when we were dating and he was traveling for work a lot, I went with him on a business trip once and when we walked into the hotel (where he had stayed before) the entire staff cheered and he did a little dance to the front desk?

That really happened.

This man is not operating in the same realm as you and me. The rules don't apply to him. He can eat full breakfasts in the dentist office. He probably doesn't even have to pay taxes.

I bet the pediatrician wouldn't judge him.

~It Just Gets Stranger