Sitting in a Waiting Room

You can tell a lot about your dentist/doctor just by sitting in the waiting room. I'm talking magazines. It has been my experience that the more expensive or high-brow the magazines, the more you should expect to pay for your visit.

My last dentist always had a copy or two of People, Hello, US Weekly, and of course, one for the boys -- Fishing. My new dentist, due to relocation, has copies of Vanity Fair, Macleans, Time, Forbes, and there was one about Architecture. I have to admit being drawn to the architecture mag, just out of curiosity. Wow, some of those homes were phenomenal. There was an article about Christopher Meloni's New York apartment, complete with fabulous photographs. That Law and Order SVU star is a lucky guy, the view from his high rise apartment looks out over Central Park.

Anyway, true to form, this visit cost way more than my last dentist. Oh yeah, another thing to look out for -- if the dentist/doctor has a family photograph where you see four/five/six kids who look to be in their teens -- s/he will have a lot of college expenses that you probably don't want to help out with.