My Tooth Fell Out (Thank God! Now I have Something To Talk About!)

If you wish for it hard enough, your tooth will in fact fall out of your mouth. It doesn’t even have to be loose. You just have to focus on what you want. 

When I saw the eclipse with my boyfriends father and brother at a Christmas tree farm in Crossville, IL, I of course fell into the seduction of nature and looked at the sun directly. I must have absorbed some sort of power that I harnessed into granting my own wish. I saw the moon cover the sun like it was a bingo chip and thought, yes! Yes, I am ready for a new era! I welcomed the rebirth that this phenomenon would supposedly provide!

I should have been more specific! 

I did not want this change to usher in a call from my childhood dentist. A dentist who famously told me that I, “don’t seem like a funny person” when I told him I did comedy. Don’t worry, he quickly changed the subject to how the Police (not the band) are getting too much bad press. He called me and urged me to see a local dentist, one close enough that I wouldn’t have to take the train. That, or I could create a comedy character out of it. 

My single missing bottom tooth character description would go as follows:

Beautiful stunning orphan girl who was born with no teeth and lives on a secluded island in Alaska. Each year since her birth a mysterious donor sent her a tooth for a yearly implant. It’s her 32nd birthday (adults have 32 teeth did you know that?) and she eagerly awaits the envelope containing her 32nd tooth. But it never comes! She must find the donor! 

The best part about losing a tooth as an adult is you have something to contribute to the group chat that is sure to elicit a response. I sent a picture of me without a tooth to everyone in my contact list and then turned off my phone. The second best part about losing a tooth is having a secret. I’ve never felt closer to myself. I was the observer and the observer of my consciousness. I listened to Blue by Joni Mitchell in a way that was inaccessible to me previously.

The worst part about losing a tooth as an adult is that you immediately develop a fear of eating granola the wrong way. 

The second worst part is that nobody gives you money! You lose $75 getting the synthetic tooth glued back onto your permanent retainer. Nobody prepared my 10-year-old self for this after placing my last baby molar under my pillow for a single dollar. I should have invested that cash. 

I would like to take a moment to say goodbye to the gap in my mouth that has since been filled:

Goodbye goodbye goodbye, you were bigger than the whole sky.