If I could erase one thing from my childhood, one thing that I never would have had to go through in my juvenile years, I'm pretty sure I'd choose losing my teeth. Sure, at first it was alright, but as soon as I ate that first meal after my tooth was gone and got a corn chip stuck in the tender wound, it was no longer an exciting step into big-kid land. It was torture. Not even the tooth fairy's money could make up for that kind of agony.
You know what? I can't even remember losing my first tooth it was THAT BAD. Erased from my memory, gone.
When I was in third grade, I lost a tooth that came with more pain than it should have. I was swinging in between two desks in my old second grade teacher's classroom, when I slipped and landed flat on my face. Blood was everywhere, the wind was knocked out of me, and one of my teeth was lying on the floor next to me. No stitches, but the next day I had a pretty sick fat lip. Just in time for picture day, nice.
Five of my teeth were pulled by the dentist. Now, getting teeth pulled is awful. It means your grown up teeth aren't ready to come in yet, leaving the fresh pink gum vulnerable for even more time - more opportunities for corn chips to stab you. I remember one of the teeth that the dentist pulled sailed over my head behind the counter. Great. Not only do I have this tender gash in my mouth, but the tooth fairy wouldn't even pay me full amount.
The worst thing about losing teeth is that there is no pleasant way to do it. You can yank it out before it is ready, but then it bleeds a lot and you have this open wound in your mouth for longer than it's worth. Or, you can wait until it falls out on its own, but then every time you eat apples or corn on the cob you risk bending the tooth in the wrong direction, causing pain or early removal of the tooth. Nothing involving the loss of teeth is joyous; it's a lose-lose-lose situation.
I hated pulling out my own teeth. My cousin, Amanda, would sometimes stay with us during the summer, so I got her to pull out numerous teeth. I think our guests were weirded out when they'd come over to find me laying in Amanda's lap full of bloody paper towels and a pile of teeth on the coffee table next to us. I think our record was three in one day.
From second grade to seventh grade I looked forward to the day where I'd lose my last tooth. I was in Finish Line at the mall getting ready to buy a new pair of sneakers. As the lady went to get my size, the tooth came out. It was a premature loss, so the blood flew. Luckily for me, my mom had a stash of napkins in her purse. Unfortunately, the only means of disposal for the bloody tissues was a see-through plastic bag. When the lady came back, I was holding bloody tissues in one hand, my tooth in the other, had a bloody tissue in my mouth, and my mother was holding the see-through bag of bloody tissues. Poor lady.
The day that wound was healed was a joyous day, never again would I have to go through the horrifying experience of losing a tooth EVER AGAIN. Then, four years later, came the day I had to get my wisdom teeth cut out.
Getting your wisdom teeth removed is the pinnacle of tooth loss. Rather than just days before you could eat the chips and salsa at the Mexican restaurants, you have to wait WEEKS, sometimes even longer than a month. My diet consisted of jello, yogurt and Ramen (preparing me for college?). When that experience was over. I thought to myself THIS TIME, never again. And I was right. Sort of.
Some time during high school, I started having these horribly realistic dreams about losing my teeth. Once, for example, I was in Walmart waiting for my friend to check out. While I was waiting, I reached in my mouth and pulled out two of my molars that were stuck to each other along with some barnacles. You'd be surprised (...or not) to hear that that was one of the tamer tooth-losing dreams. Time after time, I'd have all of these dreams about my teeth just falling out or becoming absurdly loose. Normally, I'm cool with my dreams because they are so outrageously crazy that I know they aren't real. The teeth dreams, though, seem more realistic than life itself. I was talking to one of my friends about them, and she told me that when you have dreams about losing teeth, you feel like you're losing control of your life. I'm a super stressed out person all the time, so I think it's a valid point. In a few days, I'm going to take the Optometry Admissions Test, so of course last night I dreamt that I was still losing baby teeth (the still having baby teeth dreams aren't as bad as the losing permanent teeth dreams...). I woke up counting the teeth in my mouth, making sure they were all there.
They were.
