The Tooth King

This week is spring break here in our county and there is no school. My youngest will be home when she feels like it for me to mother and friends will be visiting from Indiana. I have decided to take a few days off from blogging and since no one has stepped up to "guest" blog I shall post old entries from my very first blog that I have recently discovered while searching for something else. I've also chosen to post entries that had to do with my father. Today is the anniversary of his death and so I thought it appropriate to post old entries that had to do with him. See you next week!

August 30, 2002

My daughter's friend Brianna has a loose tooth. Her permanent tooth is already coming in behind her baby teeth and she whines quite a bit about her tooth hurting. I stood today and looked into her mouth and wished the Tooth King were here.

My father pulled all of our baby teeth in our family. He pulled a lot of the baby teeth in our neighborhood. He pulled the teeth of my friends. He was very sly about it and very gentle. He had a system. First, he would ask to look at your tooth. He would move his head back and forth, his brow furrowed, and he would study the loose tooth while making tsk tsk noises. Secondly, he would ask to wiggle the tooth. "Just to see how loose it is." Nodding our consent, he would then reach his giant fingers into our mouth and wiggle the tooth. Then he would remove his fingers and declare, "Yep, that tooth is loose and about ready to come out." Only it was out. He would have already removed it, without our knowledge, and we wouldn't know it until we put our tongue to the tooth and discover THE TOOTH WAS GONE.  Lastly, he would hold up the tooth in his fingers while we screamed, our eyes as big as saucers because HOW DID HE DO THAT?

Of course, after the first few times of him doing this we knew the drill. Despite the fact that all I really felt was a gentle tug, I would protest when he asked to see the tooth. "Don't pull it, Daddy," I would beg putting my hand up to my mouth.

"I just want to see it," he would say in his calm voice.
"It isn't ready, Daddy," I would say. "I know it. I mean it. Don't pull it." I was sure that this time I would feel him pull the tooth and this time it would hurt like hell.
"Dammit, just let me look at the tooth," he would growl. And I would dutifully open my mouth, he would study it and feel it, and once again the tooth would end up in his hands and I would not know it until I saw it.

Sometimes he would play with us and not take the tooth. I think sometimes he knew it would hurt and so he would mess with it to loosen it. He would tell us it wasn't quite ready. He would ask to look at it again. He would admit defeat. He would look at it once more, concede defeat, and WHOA it was in his fingers. Those were probably the times I felt the tug the most, but really it never hurt. My tongue would feel the gap, I would shriek as I tasted blood, and sometimes I cried. "I told you not to pull it!" I think I was more upset that he promised and lied then I was about the pulling of the tooth. Afterwards, I always stared at my tiny tooth in his big hand. "How did you do that?" I would ask in wonder, and he would laugh and grin at me. He loved it.

He pulled all of my teeth except the one that in a wad of chewing gum in the back seat of our station wagon. If any of my friend's had loose teeth that bothered them I would take them to my dad. "Just let him look at it," I would say, knowing full well the ritual and what would happen. I thought he was amazing, magical, and wonderful. He was the Tooth King.

I miss my Dad. As I stare into Brianna's mouth, memories flooding me, I miss the Tooth King. "Brianna," I hear myself say, "Let me wiggle that tooth to see...."