The tooth, and nothing but the tooth

I got the cutest voicemail the other night. My five-year-old cousin Victoria has recently become obsessed with using the telephone and because I've been deemed her "best friend" since she has been able to talk, I am the most likely person for her to call. Well that, and also because the friends she has made in school are not quite as impressed by talking on the telephone yet as Victoria.

I was sitting at my apartment watching the Oscars when my phone rang, and because I hate talking on the phone when I'm watching TV, I didn't answer it. Later, when I checked my messages I heard Victoria's familiar voice: "Hey, Tashina. You know that tooth? That front tooth? I pulled it. It came right out. Not that one front tooth, but the other front tooth. Oh yeah, it's Victoria." I immediately had to laugh out loud.

I was at my parents' house over the weekend when I noticed that Victoria still had not pulled her front tooth that had been loose for quite some time.

"You should pull it," I told her. "It's barely hanging there. Only one tooth gut is keeping it from coming out."

She scrunched her face in disgust at my description of her loose tooth and pretended to consider it, but it didn't seem to persuade her any.

"I don't want to!" she said, but I still could not keep from thinking how cute she would look with a front tooth missing.

I went into kindergarten already ahead of the game as far as missing teeth went. An accident that occurred a year or so before I started school resulted in my front tooth being knocked out way before my teeth had even started to become loose. I hated not having a tooth there, so that meant for school pictures I often tried to get away with not showing any teeth when I smiled, and then moved on to the more clever method of sticking my tongue up into the missing tooth hole. It sort of became a signature move and although it looked quite comical, my family found it endearing. I can definitely sympathize with Victoria's hesitance to pluck the tooth from her mouth, but the sucker was dying to come out.

There was a girl in my kindergarten class, Tera Beth, who was known for her long dark hair and dimples as well as more beauty pageant wins than most local girls combined. Like me, she was no stranger to being a snaggletooth. The difference between us, however, was that Tera Beth tucked her tooth loss away like a deep dark secret. Her parents had forked out the cash to get her a partial plate. Her smile had to be top notch for beauty pageants, after all. Tera Beth would spend hours entertaining us in class by flipping her partial plate out of her mouth. The only person that I knew who could remove their teeth was my grandma, but this was totally different. This was a five year old. My mind couldn't wrap around it.

It was also around that time that I got a little better acquainted with the partial plate. Like me, my sister was cursed with teeth problems, and before she had even turned four years old, her four front teeth were just tiny remains. Perhaps my parents felt guilty for the fact that I had perfected the "tongue in tooth hole" technique whenever I smiled, so they decided to go the same route as Tera Beth with Tiffany. Tiffany found herself with a brand new set of chompers and her mischievous smile was hardly effected. There was only one problem, Tiffany hated them. She complained to me constantly about the annoyance they were to her mouth, not to mention that she kind of thought they hurt too. On one hand, I was happy that my sister had the opportunity to keep her smile intact, but on the other, of course I was jealous.

The two of us were left to mind ourselves for a bit one evening, and the subject of her partial plate came up. I have to hand it to Tiff, she was good at being told what to do. We hardy had enough time to crack the suckers out against the television, when our mamaw came to find us up to not good. She was too late though. Tiffany's partial plate didn't take the beating well and she was back to sporting her gums in style. It didn't bother her much.

"I feel like a vampire," she'd say and expose her remaining teeth as if they were fangs.

Victoria seems less likely to embrace the vampire concept like Tiffany did, but I didn't think it was because she didn't want to lose them like I did, but more because she was scared it might hurt. After all, her face beamed when she told me, "I got ten bucks a piece for my bottom teeth."

She pointed out the three missing spots and I thought to myself that the price of teeth have definitely gone up from when I was little. Although, I was told I was getting a steal at five bucks a piece when most of my friends were getting quarters so who am I to judge? So no, she definitely knew what was to gain from losing a measly tooth, she just needed some help getting there.

She got the help she needed the next day. In her usual, "rotten" ways, Victoria had been swinging her shoes around her head when she failed to remember that whenever she's doing something she shouldn't be, she usually gets hurt. With a pow, her shoe hit her in the mouth. At first, it was assumed she had knocked out her loose tooth, but on closer inspection she had failed to do so. She just succeeded in making the other front tooth just as loose as the first one.

When I listened to Victoria's message, of course I had to laugh. She knew I would find her news of a missing front tooth to be very exciting, but she also knew it was not the tooth I was most concerned about - the stubborn one. I do think think that this is exactly the push she needed to take matters into her hands. I'm quite sure the next time I see her, I'll be looking at a new Victoria. My little best friend, who is growing into a big girl before my very eyes, will soon be smiling at me when we watch Eloise and Charlie and Lola with nothing but gums.

She almost makes me want to have kids one day.

Tashina Savage broke one of her teeth out when she was eating popcorn at the movies. She didn't get jack shit from the tooth fairy. You can email your concerns to sundaysgirl@gmail.com.