The Tooth Story

Thank you for welcoming me back. I love your comments.

Exercise: “Breaking the Sound Barrier”
Prompt: Tell a story and include one thing that is not quite true.

When she first discovered that she had a wiggly tooth, she was aghast, after waiting for so many months while everyone else lost them left and right, it seemed. She even had a little keeper box all ready for it, from the dental visit at her school. Now at last the time had come, and she was urgent when she told Mommy about it. Obviously, it needed to come out TODAY.

But no.

It was loose but not that loose, so we parents reassured and coached, and she wiggled and wiggled it until it was time, a few weeks later. Then Daddy pulled out his magic string and tied it on her tooth, and abracadabra, there it was! with scarcely a tug, all small and unglued in her hand, and she was a big girl, so proud.

That was at bedtime.

She set the tooth on the countertop, and I set my eye on it to preserve it from evil. She knew she would get a dollar for losing it, but I knew there would be no exchange of items in this story: she would want to keep her personal chunk of pearly history safe forever in that little tooth box.

Then morning came.

“Mommy, where my tooth?” she asked.

“It’s downstairs on the kitchen counter,” I said.

“No, I looked and it not there,” she said.

Hooo boy.

“I will ask Daddy,” I said.

We went together and found him in his office, and his mouth opened a little when he heard what we were there for. “Baby, I gave you a dollar for it,” he said carefully, “and then – I put it in the garbage.”

Her chin fell to her chest and she started to cry.

And then (may heaven forgive us for being tender parents at the times when it may not help, and utterly firm and unbending at other times when it may), her Daddy said, “I will go looking for it.”

That is the kind of man he is, and I love him.

But two sifts through the garbage can later, there was no tooth in sight, and it was time to leave for preschool—earlier than usual, because I had promised donuts for all her classmates for no reason (see also Tender Parenting Mistakes Volume II), and we needed to make a stop for them. Her dreams of showing and telling her newfound treasure went out the door, trailing after us in a sad and sorry parade.

She got sunny again while we chose the donuts, a dozen and a half all lightly greased and plump and frosted.

As we pulled into her school drive, I saw I was following a car that looked a lot like her Daddy’s. And then I saw it was him, and I was so confused about what he could be doing there, because duh, our day had moved on.

Then, “Oh, baby!” I said. “I bet he found your tooth!!” And she lit up like a birthday cake.

Sure enough. After half an hour of digging, he was deep into the coffee-grounds-stage when the fork he was using to sort through the final dregs went “clink” on something hard, and there it was. He cleaned it up, snapped it into its tiny keeper, and drove all the way to school just to meet her and make her day.

(Then we sanitized the fork. I have to say this because I can hardly think about that garbage without turning greenish around the gills, and I was not the one digging.)

She got to show her extraction off to her classmates AND give them donuts, an unrepeatably awesome day. Now she will treasure it always, that dumb little tooth in its box, her personal proof of a Daddy who is off-the-charts.

The End

What do you think is not true about this story? Only one small thing, but make it a good twist. I will tell you Monday… or maybe Saturday, if I get impatient with myself and don’t want to wait. 🙂