silver4's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Smiles Sooo I'm supposed to go to a local radio station tomorrow with my boss and be interviewed for this Give Kids a Smile Day event that we are hosting at our office in a few weeks. It's an annual thing organized by the American Dental Association, and my boss volunteered our office to be one of the hosts in the city. And she said we would take 200 kids. I repeat, two hundred. Did I mention this already? I swear I have short term memory. Anyways, blah blah they want us to talk about it on the radio, and I guess it's okay and all. The thing is, I hate media attention for some reason. People can take pictures of me all day, but like anything vocal or recorded I have a problem with. But since the station is in the urban community and it's a black station and blah blah keeping the community spirit, I get suckered into doing this stuff because I am the token representative of what they want to show the community. I swear I am being used because I am black and have family in that area and all the other things it entails. And no, I'm not saying this out of just my own thoughts, but both the office manager and a board member were like "you'd be perfect to do this because you grew up in this community and you're from here and you know what it's like" blah blah blah... Ummm not...entirely...true. I mean, essentially yeah kinda, but I wasn't raised in poverty (we weren't rich but we weren't in the projects), and the family I was raised with is in a completely different area of the city. Hell, I don't even live in Las Vegas itself, I'm more south in Henderson. They all think I have some sad story about being poor and rising above it or something. Yeah uh... I never said that. I've been clear from the beginning. I always did well in school, I went to a nerdy high school, I never lived in the ghetto areas...sorry. And no, I'm not saying I'm above anybody else, I've never been conceited like that and I never would be; I don't think I'm superior at all. I just don't have the story they kind of want me to portray. So I'm honestly not the real representative of "the community". Some of my cousins are. Maybe I should tell them to take my place. Anyways. I don't like the misrepresentation. I want to be me wholly. But whatever. I'll memorize some lines and show up and smile. Hopefully it isn't more than 20 minutes. A patient gave me $80 today. He tried to give me money before, to me and my assistant who always works with me on him, for us to go to lunch. He says he's so thankful for us to help him out etc and for being so nice to him always. At first, the first time, he was like oh let me buy you two lunch, and I said oh no, you don't have to, thank you. He was adamant and I said okay, then he busted out his wallet and I said no. I think he was hurt but he accepted my rejection. Then again he tried and I said no again. Then he got sneaky and gave me a Christmas card with money in it ($60) saying the same thing, lunch for myself and my assistant. I didn't know what to do so I havent touched it. I sent him a thank you card though with our thanks. I didn't know he was coming in today, and I was like oh thank you blah blah, and at the end of just doing a cleaning, he said again let me buy you two lunch, and I said no again. He was super adamant and said he won, that he bet on the football game and got a bunch of cash, and he wanted to share. So I caved and said fine, hoping it was like really just $20 for lunch. Nope, he busted out the 80 and I asked him not to. But he insisted, and so I thanked him several times and pocketed the cash. My assistant wasnt there at the time, so she missed the conversation. She knew about the holiday cash, I had told her I didn't know what to do with it. So after he and the rest of the morning patients are done, I pull her aside and give her the money. I told her I couldn't accept it and that it was for both of us, so I'd rather she have it. She has three kids and I know she's good with putting her money in the right place and she's a great mom, and she wants to get things for them but has to worry about other daily things like rent, food, priorities. So I forced the money on her like he forced it on me, and I'm happy I did. She said she would buy the twins new socks and underwear etc. I also keep getting random pairs of movie tickets from people, the vouchers for regal cinema, and she mentioned that her girls wanted to see the new 3D beauty and the beast, and they never go to the theater. The tickets have been collecting dust on my refridgerator, so I gave them to her to take the girls. She said they were so excited and were picking out their outfits and have been working on a thank you letter for me! So cute :) It was nothing though for me, I don't have anybody to go to the movies with or anything, and it feels better to just give them to people who want them. So thats where I stand. She is my favorite assistant anyways, she followed me from my first dental job after she saw me on the Spanish news channel. She's my main supporter for opening my own office. A married patient with a semi crush on me gave me two of the tickets. I'm fine to pass those along. One of these days Karma will be kind to me. I guess I am giving kids smiles. Hahaha.... I'm corny. 8:28 p.m. - 2012-01-13 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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