High drama in the Rama household last night. Somebody lost a tooth, but only realized it when he noticed an empty space in his mouth. Yesterday morning at breakfast, this self-same person had announced he believed today was the day he would lose his upper incisor.
“How soon do you think it will fall out?” I asked him.
“By nightfall.”
All day long, whenever this person had free time in between playing Legos and rolling back and forth across the family room floor complaining of boredom, he would take the opportunity to wiggle the loose tooth. Every couple of hours, we would get a status update. Something like, “My tooth is hanging on by about three threads . . . my tooth is hanging on by two threads,” and so on.
At bedtime, the person noticed a space in his mouth where there never used to be one. The tooth was missing!
But we couldn’t find it. Adding to the problem was the fact that the person with the missing tooth had no idea where he was or what he was doing when he lost it. And he was very concerned that without evidence, the Tooth Fairy would not visit.
My husband and I assured him that the Tooth Fairy has a way of sniffing out households where teeth are missing and would come anyway. But he made us promise to keep looking for it even after he went to bed.
“And if you find it, can you run over it a few times with a toothbrush? I want it to be nice and shiny.”
I considered substituting the tooth with one from the stash of already lost ones in my nightstand, but the possibility that the toothless person would recognize it for a fraud was just too great.
My daughter offered to write a letter to the Tooth Fairy on the toothless person’s behalf, explaining the situation. Dear Tooth Fairy, I lost my tooth but I can’t find it. I hope you will still visit.
My husband and I had problems of our own, seeing as we were both in our pajamas and had no cash on hand. I briefly debated going with a partially used Starbucks gift card, but in the end the P-Dawg put on a pair of pants and drove to the ATM machine.
And what do you know, the Tooth Fairy came after all. She left FIVE dollars.
“And for nothing!” said the person with the missing tooth.
“I would like to get five dollars for nothing,” said my daughter.
But let’s face it, the child got five dollars for swallowing his own tooth and living to tell about it.
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