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wing blood! I wonder why she screamed like that, that day. I hope she doesn’t scream while in the hospital where she’s receiving the vaccination tomorrow. It will make our dental clinic look bad in front of the hospital nurses if she pulls that banshee act again.”</p><h2 id="9040">So screaming is wrong only when he thinks so, too?</h2><p id="7057">So what if he said that? Well, for quite a while he thought the pathology technician was bad at his job, which is a besmirching of a good technician’s name in my husband’s head… Besides — <b><i>as if I would pick a person who didn’t know his job!</i></b></p><p id="cfa4">Most aggravating of all, my husband told me off unforgivably on the day I scolded the assistant for screaming. He was like, “Oh, you can’t expect her to sit through a blood drawing like <b><i>you</i></b>, you’re strong. The poor thing, first to have blood drawn, to be fearful, and then have to pretend strength, is too much. Did you have to be so mean? You, Roopa, you’re so arrogant, nobody is good enough for you.”</p><p id="525e">Today I realized – he didn’t think her screaming was normal. He just thinks that screaming <i>in front of an audience</i> is wrong.</p><p id="f558">He’s actually hinted to me that the assistants should behave themselves at their Covid-19 vaccinations tomorrow, and not scream their noggins off.</p><h2 id="e406">Getting the vaccine? Take a day or two off</h2><p id="6fcc">It drives me crazy that far from being kind to me when I receive an injection, my husband expects me, as a dentist, to be strong. After my Covid vaccination, I took no days off and got no leeway at the clinic. He took on none of my cases. Not that he could have, like Ben-Hur's galley-mates, we’ve rowed on one side of the galley too long to switch.</p><p id="d2d0">The assistants, after my experience of fatigue and myalgia, well, I have been easier on them, demanding that they take two days off after each of two doses. There’s no point in working when you’re feeling sick, and I’m not the whip-cracking taskmaster my husband makes me out to be. Though of course, when I say it, a couple of days off is an order, too. Not a request.</p><figure id="e793"><img src="https://cdn-images-1.readmedium.com/v2/resize:fit:800/1*[email protected]"><figcaption>Me at work, with one of my assistants. The assistants load the syringes but do not inject them. Only the dentist injects. Photo by author.</figcaption></figure><h2 id="deb6">I hate his good cop! I’m not even a cop!</h2><p id="b1d2">The hubby also has a “let it go” or “be calm” face <i>in front of</i> the assistants when I catch them out at a mistake in a standard operating protocol. SOPs are crucial in dental clinics, and if anyone skips an item or a step in my clinic, I come down hard. I write down the mistake on a whiteboard in the clinic, with a drawing of the missing item in the tray, and the girl never forgets again.</p><p id="e86c">What frustrates me is that after he works more smoothly, due to assistants almost entirely groomed by me, my husband holds up their new skills against me to tell me what a dragon I am.</p><p id="752d">It is as if he is the protector of the weak and oppressed, and I am the person doing the oppressing.</p><h2 id="2117">No, I won’t let it slide</h2><p id="37d0">Just in case you’re wondering – I go hard when they mix up names, phone numbers, or appointments. So they don’t, not after the first time. Or if they miss an item on a tray, on the whiteboard it goes

Options

. I’m paying them to speed me up, not slow me down. Wasted time of just two minutes on the dental chair, when three new people with pain are already waiting to be seen, means a loss of 5x2 minutes – ten minutes. Me, the patient on the chair, and the three people outside. My husband finds this calculation frustrating and tells me that two minutes is just two minutes and I shouldn’t point out that mistake.</p><h2 id="d449">If you think you’re a waif, you’re right</h2><figure id="98ba"><img src="https://cdn-images-1.readmedium.com/v2/resize:fit:800/1*[email protected]"><figcaption></figcaption></figure><figure id="1fa8"><img src="https://cdn-images-1.readmedium.com/v2/resize:fit:800/1*[email protected]"><figcaption>See? She manages easily now. Women aren’t weak. They can throw shutters up and down. Photo by author.</figcaption></figure><p id="89a2">If I can throw our shutter up and down at age 44, they should be able to do it at age 22. Besides, if they can’t do it at all, they just have to try to pull at it and their body will be strong enough in a week or two. I don’t condone waif-like behavior, where they used to call a man from the next door’s carpenter’s shop to do this muscly-work for them — at my esteemed husband’s suggestion!</p><figure id="e697"><img src="https://cdn-images-1.readmedium.com/v2/resize:fit:800/1*[email protected]"><figcaption>After work, my assistant demonstrates the u-shaped iron tugger that they used to use when they couldn’t drag the shutter down. This tugger is my husband's version of a girl push-up! The tugger is a clinic joke now, nobody uses it (how could they, I mocked it). Photo by author.</figcaption></figure><p id="96d8">I quietly trained them in the clean-jerk of the shutter raise and drop — and now they can easily handle the shutter. Nobody ever does muscly-work for you in real life!</p><figure id="5f4e"><img src="https://cdn-images-1.readmedium.com/v2/resize:fit:800/1*[email protected]"><figcaption>Me with my girl Army. The girl in the blue and red is the one throwing up the shutter in the previous photos. By author.</figcaption></figure><p id="d591">I don’t mind if he tells me I’ve been harsh in private, but often, he’ll let himself go and tell me not to be such a dragon in front of them.</p><h2 id="6209">Maybe my “misogynistic” hubby isn’t misogynistic.</h2><p id="9143">He’s just so fond of keeping the peace and is so easygoing he would rather let the <i>process</i> go. So he hates me for snapping at the assistants!</p><p id="4559">Fortunately, my girls are gold. I pick them well. They know that if Sir says it is OK, it isn’t OK till Madam says OK too.</p><p id="bf20">Take that, cake. I get to have you and eat you, too.</p><p id="ece1">Oh, and how have my husband and I managed to live together and work together for twenty years?</p><p id="665d" type="7">Well, we do have separate bathrooms.</p><p id="1b0e">P.S. I wrote this as honestly as I could. If you feel sorry for my husband, you should. If you feel sorry for me, you shouldn’t. He’s right, I am a tough cookie.</p><h2 id="9048">People come to the clinic because they know we can help</h2><p id="2f8a">Dental clinics aren’t run for dentists or assistants. They’re run to make people feel better, chew better, digest their food better, and live better! My assistants have helped us give injections to thousands of patients. They ought to be able to take a few injections now and then.</p></article></body>

Am I the Devil Who Wears Prada, Or Is He The Misogynist?

Reflections on living 24/7 with your husband

My husband and I after attending a wedding, back in 2019. Photo courtesy of our daughters, I don’t recall if the teen took it or the tween.

In Gillian Sisley‘s story about cake smearing of the bride’s expensively made-up face by the groom, she writes a piece of satire that hit close to the truth, for me.

First, guys look for the perfect girl. The good looker, the energetic one, the one you can take home to momma, and the one who can explain why booking losses is as important as booking profits at the end of the financial year.

Then they start to try and diminish her at the very wedding by smearing cake on her face.

Well, we don’t have cake at Indian weddings, and there was no way my husband, poor dear sweetheart that he is, would have the guts to have done that in a house full of my cousins, even if we did.

That said, a little fear of the wife and a desire to see her humiliated lurks in the hearts of the best of men, and this is what happened. You can decide if it is misogyny on his part, or if I am the Devil who wears Prada.

Not really Prada, I use an India tailor. Photo by author.

An assistant of mine needed her blood drawn for a test. We’re dentists, my hubby and me. We’re old hats at vaccinations and all our assistants have received two doses of Hepatitis B. Receiving injections or having blood drawn isn’t new to us, or our staff.

Not to mention the many hundreds of injections syringes our assistants have loaded over the years, for patients’ local anesthesia, for my husband and me to inject. Often, our assistants will soothe away the patients’ injection fears, telling them how comfortable it actually is.

Me at work with my chair-side assistant. Photo by author.

Now, you’d expect a girl who loads over twenty syringes a day to bite a bullet and sit politely through a blood draw for a test? Especially when she’s in the very dental clinic where she works, and a pathology technician is coming in just for her, as a favor to us.

Who screams even before a needle?

Well, she screamed like a cat that was being strangled very, very slowly. Even before the needle was in her skin. The pathology technician who was drawing the blood looked disgusted. I ticked off my assistant, telling her that she should have followed her own advice to our patients, and not made such a scene. Even if there was nobody watching except my husband and me.

Yesterday, my husband’s blood was drawn by the same pathology technician, and my dear hubby was surprised. He said, “the way our assistant screamed, I expected much worse. I couldn’t believe how fast and comfortable that technician is at drawing blood! I wonder why she screamed like that, that day. I hope she doesn’t scream while in the hospital where she’s receiving the vaccination tomorrow. It will make our dental clinic look bad in front of the hospital nurses if she pulls that banshee act again.”

So screaming is wrong only when he thinks so, too?

So what if he said that? Well, for quite a while he thought the pathology technician was bad at his job, which is a besmirching of a good technician’s name in my husband’s head… Besides — as if I would pick a person who didn’t know his job!

Most aggravating of all, my husband told me off unforgivably on the day I scolded the assistant for screaming. He was like, “Oh, you can’t expect her to sit through a blood drawing like you, you’re strong. The poor thing, first to have blood drawn, to be fearful, and then have to pretend strength, is too much. Did you have to be so mean? You, Roopa, you’re so arrogant, nobody is good enough for you.”

Today I realized – he didn’t think her screaming was normal. He just thinks that screaming in front of an audience is wrong.

He’s actually hinted to me that the assistants should behave themselves at their Covid-19 vaccinations tomorrow, and not scream their noggins off.

Getting the vaccine? Take a day or two off

It drives me crazy that far from being kind to me when I receive an injection, my husband expects me, as a dentist, to be strong. After my Covid vaccination, I took no days off and got no leeway at the clinic. He took on none of my cases. Not that he could have, like Ben-Hur's galley-mates, we’ve rowed on one side of the galley too long to switch.

The assistants, after my experience of fatigue and myalgia, well, I have been easier on them, demanding that they take two days off after each of two doses. There’s no point in working when you’re feeling sick, and I’m not the whip-cracking taskmaster my husband makes me out to be. Though of course, when I say it, a couple of days off is an order, too. Not a request.

Me at work, with one of my assistants. The assistants load the syringes but do not inject them. Only the dentist injects. Photo by author.

I hate his good cop! I’m not even a cop!

The hubby also has a “let it go” or “be calm” face in front of the assistants when I catch them out at a mistake in a standard operating protocol. SOPs are crucial in dental clinics, and if anyone skips an item or a step in my clinic, I come down hard. I write down the mistake on a whiteboard in the clinic, with a drawing of the missing item in the tray, and the girl never forgets again.

What frustrates me is that after he works more smoothly, due to assistants almost entirely groomed by me, my husband holds up their new skills against me to tell me what a dragon I am.

It is as if he is the protector of the weak and oppressed, and I am the person doing the oppressing.

No, I won’t let it slide

Just in case you’re wondering – I go hard when they mix up names, phone numbers, or appointments. So they don’t, not after the first time. Or if they miss an item on a tray, on the whiteboard it goes. I’m paying them to speed me up, not slow me down. Wasted time of just two minutes on the dental chair, when three new people with pain are already waiting to be seen, means a loss of 5x2 minutes – ten minutes. Me, the patient on the chair, and the three people outside. My husband finds this calculation frustrating and tells me that two minutes is just two minutes and I shouldn’t point out that mistake.

If you think you’re a waif, you’re right

See? She manages easily now. Women aren’t weak. They can throw shutters up and down. Photo by author.

If I can throw our shutter up and down at age 44, they should be able to do it at age 22. Besides, if they can’t do it at all, they just have to try to pull at it and their body will be strong enough in a week or two. I don’t condone waif-like behavior, where they used to call a man from the next door’s carpenter’s shop to do this muscly-work for them — at my esteemed husband’s suggestion!

After work, my assistant demonstrates the u-shaped iron tugger that they used to use when they couldn’t drag the shutter down. This tugger is my husband's version of a girl push-up! The tugger is a clinic joke now, nobody uses it (how could they, I mocked it). Photo by author.

I quietly trained them in the clean-jerk of the shutter raise and drop — and now they can easily handle the shutter. Nobody ever does muscly-work for you in real life!

Me with my girl Army. The girl in the blue and red is the one throwing up the shutter in the previous photos. By author.

I don’t mind if he tells me I’ve been harsh in private, but often, he’ll let himself go and tell me not to be such a dragon in front of them.

Maybe my “misogynistic” hubby isn’t misogynistic.

He’s just so fond of keeping the peace and is so easygoing he would rather let the process go. So he hates me for snapping at the assistants!

Fortunately, my girls are gold. I pick them well. They know that if Sir says it is OK, it isn’t OK till Madam says OK too.

Take that, cake. I get to have you and eat you, too.

Oh, and how have my husband and I managed to live together and work together for twenty years?

Well, we do have separate bathrooms.

P.S. I wrote this as honestly as I could. If you feel sorry for my husband, you should. If you feel sorry for me, you shouldn’t. He’s right, I am a tough cookie.

People come to the clinic because they know we can help

Dental clinics aren’t run for dentists or assistants. They’re run to make people feel better, chew better, digest their food better, and live better! My assistants have helped us give injections to thousands of patients. They ought to be able to take a few injections now and then.