Vacation Vignettes #4 - The Tooth

"The Tooth that Wouldn't Budge"
Or, more accurately,
"The Tooth That Wouldn't Stop Budging and Just Fall Out Already!"

This is the story of a girl and a tooth. An obstinate, pertinacious little tooth. A tooth which rather reveled in remaining lodged in the girl's jaw. An irksome tooth that teased and tormented with its wiggling and ever-so-slight loosening for months on end. A tooth, which, with its latter looseness, was the source of no small amount of discomfort and inopportune bleeding. A tooth whose location (upper right central incisor) and degree of previously mentioned latter looseness made the consumption of all things requiring incising (sandwiches, pizza, fajitas, apples, corn on the cob) troublesome, if not altogether impossible.

But this tooth was not equipped to win this battle. It met its match in tenacity. The girl would not rest until she wiggled that tooth out of her head. She was constantly at work. Wiggling with her fingers. Wiggling with her tongue. Wiggling in the day. Wiggling in the evening. She probably wiggled in her sleep.

Each day I inquired, "Still have that tooth?" Each day the answer was the same. Though she hoped it would be out soon, she equally hoped it would remain long enough to make its grand exit in Florida. I don't know why. Perhaps she thought the Floridian tooth fairies are of a more generous sort than the Texas variety. As we shall see, they're a little quirkier, to be sure.

For a time, I was certain the tooth could not possibly remain to accompany us to Florida. Once there, as the days dragged on, I became convinced the tooth was determined to return to Texas as it came - still firmly entrenched.

But, on the final morning of our visit, with only one evening remaining in which the girl's pillow would lie in the realm of the Sunshine state, the tooth, wearied and defeated by the incessant, unrelenting wiggling of its foe, relinquished its hold, and emerged.

And what did the Floridian tooth fairy leave in exchange for this humdinger of a tooth? None other than a clean, crisp $2 bill. (I told you they were quirky.)



And now the other incisor is beginning to budge. Who's up for round two?