After a glowing review from my sister Rebecca, I decided to contact my local orthodontist and request Invisalign.

“Invisalign uses a series of clear aligners that are custom-molded to fit you. The virtually invisible aligners gradually reposition your teeth into a smile you’ll be proud of.”

And that’s what I wanted. This was back in January.

Yes, I did have braces when I was younger. Though they made playing the trumpet a bloody-lipped nightmare, they did straighten my teeth. But, like too many short-sighted teens, I never wore my retainer afterwards and my teeth eventually started to wander. It’s probably for aesthetic reasons that I’d like to straighten my teeth now, but I can justify it with the fact that a couple of the twisted teeth on the bottom make cleaning between them something difficult to impossible.

I thought my sister got a halfway decent deal when she did it in the States so I decided to go for it. Surprise #1: it would cost me twice as much to have the process done here! About 6000 euros! But I went for it anyway. I lost a lot of sleep over that decision.

They took some molds of my mouth and sent them off to the company and I paid a substantial down payment. Surprise #2: I was told that I would have to wait about a month to even find out if I was a candidate for the procedure. And they pointed out that, if they tell you one month, that usually means to expect at least two months. And if I wasn’t deemed a viable candidate, I wouldn’t be getting back my down payment. But I went for it anyway. I lost a lot of hair over that decision.

One month passed. Two months passed. Three, four, five months passed!!! I guess this was surprise #3. I knocked on their door and the following conversation took place (more or less):

Me: WTF?!
Them: We’re very sorry.
Me: I should f@#king hope so!
Them: Look, we’ve been calling them every single day for the past two months and they either give us the run around or they don’t answer, we leave a message, and they never get back to us. We’ve even tried contacting the Spanish sales representative but she’s completely useless. We’re very frustrated as we imagine you are. You’re not the only person who’s been waiting to hear back from these people. Imagine what it would be like if you were six months into the process when this happened! They’ve made us look very bad and they’re hurting our reputation with our clients, so we’ve decided to not work with them ever again.
Me: So where does that leave me?
Them: We’ll be happy to refund your money and we hope you don’t hold this unfortunate incident against us.

Fair enough. I walked in there pretty pissed off but getting my money back seemed to make everything all better. Anyway, they went on to explain how they’ve started working with a new company called Clear Aligner that provides a very similar service, is located in Spain so communication and turn-around times are much faster, and is about half the price. I told them I’d have to think about it. This was in July.

Today I went back to the orthodontist and signed on the dotted line. They made some more molds of my teeth and I should be getting my first set of clear aligners in under two weeks.

What was the damage? Cheaper than 6000. Less than 3000. They quoted me 2700, to be paid 900 up front and 24 monthly installments of 75 euros. Figuring I had nothing to lose, I asked them if they would be willing to give me a discount if I paid the whole thing up front. The receptionist said she didn’t think that would be possible. I told her to go to the secret office in the back and ask anyway. She came back a minute later and said they’d knock 5% off. Sweet. I saved about 200 euros just by asking. I was very proud of myself.