T.A.O.T.G. Episode 3: Of Agnes Borchardt: Dentist, Reliable Bar Patron, and Sometime Giver of Assistance and Equipment.

"Dr. Borchardt is not in on Tuesdays. Would you like to make an appointment with her associate Dr. Marvin?" No, I would not.

"No, I would not, thank you," I say semi-politely and hang up the phone. Agnes Borchardt, D.D.S. works 3 days a week. I guess in dentistry if you can find a few others who share your passion for working as little as possible, you can open a partnership office and work only on Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays. This also seems to mean that dentists earn enough to live on from 3 days of work (and when you break it down, the appointments on those days seem to only happen between 9 and 3). Yeah...dentistry really starts to seem like a sham...but I digress.

Anyway, our healthcare provider is an HMO and Borchardt was the first name on the list when I, at the behest of my mother, decided to go in for a cleaning last year. I can never recall exactly how it went down but during that initial visit, she was somehow able to use her dental powers to not only extract from my mouth a loose filling, but also that I was an on-comission P.I. and would handsomely reward a client referral. It was barely a week later that I was working the Friday night shift downstairs and first learned about my dentist's love of the sauce. (Note: She has absolutely never, as far as I can tell, performed any dentistical procedures under the influence of alcohol or drugs.) (I think she merely likes to throw down a few on her off-days, which number 4 for those playing at home.)(I hope thats it.)

Now, when you work as a bartender, even as little as I do, you'll come to find that a lot of your friends are alcoholics or a bunch of alcoholics have become your friends, or something; you don't even remember which way it goes. Agnes is a textbook one-of-these.

Come to think of it, I've given 12 client-referral drink coupons in the last year and all but one were from Agnes. I really don't know how she does it. She's really just some kind of social "gap-filler", uniting the collective unconscious, bringing souls closer together. And she throws down Appletinis like water.

Other important facts:

I guess to keep her office environment loose and friendly, she insists that patients and everyone call her by her first name. When she comes in the bar, however, I like to make everyone call her "Doctor". I think it makes her nervous. I just find it funny to hear "Another Drink, Doctor?" And then sometimes when talking about her in the 3rd person, I call her the Shard. It sounds sinister. As in: "You dont wanna tell us about Carlito??? Maybe we should see if the Shard has a better idea..."

In all seriousness, her socio-commuicational skills have come in handy and she has assisted several times in "smoothly & efficiently" extracting desired information from people. (See Case #258: The Taco-shop Polygamists and the Wedding-Gift-Registry Scam)

Also, Deeb Mueller and I once borrowed her X-Ray machine to survey the contents of a briefcase. Yes, we did. And it worked.

T.A.O.T.G. Supplemental Materials 1

Dear loyal reader,

because i have time in between incoming calls, i've decided to periodically post documents related to our story.  the following materials are pdfs.  let me know if this is a problem, and i'll have one of our interns make jpegs or something and then bring me a goddamn cappuccino.

1. and now to pull the rug out from under the acronym, or: if our story had a "cover"

2. the first comp beverage ticket (ref. episode 2)

3. the fax I received from the Admiral (ref. episode 2).  the man can talk and fax at the same time.  it's mindblowing.

4. a t-shirt idea that is now officially public domain.  if you use it, at least send me a picture.  (ref. episode 2)

see you soon in episode 3

sincerely,

t. green