Debra Thomas Burhans

My Brief Foray into Dental Medicine

This semester my bill from the University seemed unexpectedly high. I thought maybe the fees had quintupled again, so I called the registrar to check. I use the phrase "the registrar" rather loosely, for it has no definite referent as required by the use of the definite article. No, "the registrar" is (I am sure) a vast maze of cubicles full of sub-registrars, or partial-registrars, who together comprise some sort of collective registrar entity. Upon calling and spending about half an hour on hold as I was bounced between various registrarian blobs of matter I was informed that, since I had registered for CLD 875 (for 2 credits) and then dropped it after the deadline, I was being charged full fees for those two credits and prorated 30% of the tuition for a 2-credit graduate course. My first reaction was incredulity. CLD????. Since I had no idea which department was associated with this abbreviation (computers for lame dudes? computer laboratory duh something, the c definitely had to stand for computer), imagine my suprise upon discovering that this abbreviation represented CLINICAL DENTISTRY!!! Now, I do confess a short-term flirtation with becoming a car mechanic/hair dresser (it's a long story from my wanton youth), but dentist has never even been "on the map". No offence to dentists, I am glad of their existence, though not their fees (for crowns in particular), but without them I would probably already be a toothless wonder. Or at least toothless. But I digress. As far as registration goes, as a faculty member I don't register myself at all, registration is done through the faculty union directly. Because I have a tendency to assume guilt before any inkling of why or how I might have done something, or even in many cases what I've done, I did allow for the possibility that, unbeknownst to myself, I had registered myself in some course (very remote since I would have been completely uncognizant of this act). When I heard it was clinical dentistry I knew that even my somnambulent alter-ego could not have done such a deed, default guilt or no default guilt. I called back and told them I was finishing a PhD in Computer Science this semester and there was no possibility that I had registered for an 800-level clinical dentistry course. Can you believe that it was not immediately clear that this mistake was going to be corrected! As anyone who has dealt with a large bureaucracy knows, there is no reasoning with it. It was of absolutely no use pointing out that I had not a single prerequisite for this clinical dentistry course, unless attaching a string to a loose tooth in fourth grade and a doorhandle, then slamming the door closed (the sort of thing you only try once), qualified me. It's this type of experience that makes one feel like the protagonist in a Kafka novel. Today I called back. My bill has been corrected. My brief foray into the field of Dental Medicine never existed, except, of course, in my mind.