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Inspirational Reads

A Visit from the Tooth Fairy

March 9, 2008

Okay, enough morning over Favre hanging them up. Let's move on to other things.

My daughter, Cookie, finally lost her first tooth over the weekend. She had wiggled it to the point where it pretty much stuck straight out of her mouth. It looked bad. It looked like we belong in the South. I found this highly unacceptable (to prove I don't belong here, other than to collect a paycheck, I've been using multisyllabic words in excess lately) and so I decided it was time to yank it.

So, I sat down and wiggled it for her. I wiggled, and things were not going anywhere, so I sat there and twisted it until the infamous "pop" happened. She bolted back in pain and pulled in a sharp breath, then shoved a paper towel in her mouth to soak up the blood. She held the paper towel up so that she could show me that it was "a lot of blood". The tooth remained intact, however--well, as intact as a tooth that's been very wiggly and freshly twisted to the popping point could be. She would not let me touch the tooth again, other than to wiggle it. Once wiggled, she quickly put the paper towel back in her mouth to soak up the excessive blood. Frustrated (another multisyllabic word) I finally asked if she could grab the tooth. Once she nodded, I told her to yank it. Out the tooth came! Hooray! Celebration time! I guess.

This was the front incisor on the left side. The reason I bring this up is because it's time for another flashback!

The only tooth I really remember loosing was this same tooth. I was in the gym having lunchtime recess (it was snowing outside, so we were sent to the gym). We were being goofy, and my friend Asa went to pantomime (check it out!) zipping my mouth shut, but he missed slightly, and his fingers smacked my tooth, nearly knocking it out of the socket. Yes, there was blood; yes, there was a little bit of pain. I turned to go to the nurse right away. I think Asa was freaked and felt bad. If you ever read this, dude, sorry to freak you. Anyway, when I got a look at it, it was literally hanging by a string. Some other kid (I think I was in Boy Scouts with him later on...ah, life in small town America) was sick in the nurse's office, but he got me to man up and just yank the fucking thing out of my head (this was after twenty minutes of poking at the tooth hanging by that last little string of connective tissue). I felt so proud. That night, I was rewarded with a pair of shiny quarters. Hooray!

Nowadays, the Tooth Fairy is doing pretty well for herself (probably comes with the territory after marrying Jorgen von Strangle), and so she rewarded Cookie with a somewhat crisp, fairly wrinkly dollar. It was going to be a gold dollar, but suddenly those things have gone missing. Oh well. The problem was, at the last second, Cookie decided to pull the old "classic misdirection" and she wanted to keep the tooth. Gasp! Fortunately, the Tooth Fairy wrote a note saying that she left the tooth in the safe keeping of Mommy and Daddy. Problem solved. And she got the pay off.

I just wish I had seen the Tooth Fairy bring the tooth into my room. She's hot!


EDIT: Tad Williams has a new blog. Read it. There's a certain amount of foreshadowing in it, I fear.

1 comments:

Chemgeek said...

I'm still about 4 years from this. I do however remember my tooth wiggling days. A couple of teeth were downright adventures. I had one nasty tooth that just would not release. My dad "helped." He tricked me with the "I just want to feel how wiggly it is" line. While he was wiggling it, he grabbed it and gave it a good solid tug. I was unprepared for this and my tooth was not impressed. It stayed where it was for a few more hours. I never let my dad help me lose a tooth again.