THANK YOU everyone for emails and comments. I really appreciate this. I am trying to say that you are not alone, and people are saying, you are not alone either, right back. So thanks for that.
Franny came back with more than stories. She also came back sans toof. She lost her first top tooth a couple of weeks ago, and hot on the heels of that was her other top front tooth, at her dad’s house.
I was disturbed by how big of a window it left. It just felt naked somehow.
There, that’s better. Curtains make naked windows cheerier, don’t you think?
Franny lost her tooth to the “tooth fairy” at her dad’s. Here she keeps them in a special treasure box. I believe that children should keep their body parts so they can choose to sell them on ebay when they get broke and famous.
“How much did the tooth fairy leave you?” I asked.
“A dollar,” she said.
“Did you wake up when your dad came in?”
“Yeah.”
“How did you like the tooth fairy experience?” I asked.
Franny thought for a moment. “Well, everyone said it was going to be pretty exciting, but it was really not that exciting.”
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“It’s okay.”
“Do you want to go out for ice cream this week to celebrate?”
“YEAH!” she said.
I wish I would have gotten ice cream when I lost a tooth! Usually the ‘rents were like “Hey kid, here’s a quarter.”
My son just got his first two cavities. We also went out for ice cream, not to celebrate the cavities but to celebrate his general bravery.
Are you gonna teach Franny a lesson by using HER dollar for the ice cream?
“Celebrate means YOU PAY, there, Franny.”
Now she’ll get those HUGE chiclet teeth. Those are so funny. Kids look like beavers for a while.
I just LOVE the curtain!
I lost both front teeth when I was 4, and did not get my big ones in until I was 7 – I shit you not. I had no front teeth for two summers – I remember explicitly because I could not eat corn on the cob for two summers – my grandmother had to scrape it off the cob for me. Depressing! When I finally got my big teeth, they were HUGE! I was bucktoothed and they hung down to my chin…. I was such a pretty child…
thank you for just being around so that i KNOW i’m not alone. seriously.
yeah, it’s wierd seeing your kid with the big, gawping gap… The humongo buck teeth are funny too in such a tiny mouth.
god, i love the tagline-who knew Will Rogers was so smart?
i’m so gonna steal that.
:)
True story– my dad gave me a silver dollar for every tooth I lost. And there was none of this toothfairy shit. It was commerce: I’d give him the tooth, he’d give me a dollar, it was his tooth.
So one day about 2 years before he left this shitty world it dawned on me to ask him, “Hey dad, do you still have all my baby teeth?”
And he was like, “Sure, they’re in that silver matchbox on the shelf over there.”
So I pick up the matchbox and open it and, sure enough, lots of teeth. Only I’m looking at them and I’m seeing some pretty strange shit. Like, some really weird-looking pointy mutant teeth ‘n shit. So I’m like, “Hey dad, what up with these freaky-looking sawtooth teeth?”
And dad looks in the box and he’s all, “Oh yeah, those are the dog’s milk teeth.”
And there’s a pause. And then I was all, like, “Hold on. You put my teeth in the same box with the fucking DOG’S teeth? So, like, how the fuck am I supposed to be able to tell which teeth are mine?”
And he shrugs and goes, “Well, that dog’s always been a better son than you anyhow.”
Eventually he died. I went through his shit, took what I wanted, and left the rest for the neighbors and the landlord. Kris, our downstairs neighbor, sent that worthless fuck’n dog to live with a nice lesbian couple in West Seattle and they had him put down a few years later at the ripe old age of 14.
I’ve still got the matchbox somewhere.
The end.