Teeth

“I’d rather drown in Drain-o than have your teeth!” is not something that has been said to me. But it is what the Yahoo ads imply with their yellowed, chipped, rotted teeth photos that would strike horror into the hearts of zombies.

During my last visit, my 3 year-old nephew pointed at my teeth then touched his own, looking puzzled. “Why are yours like that?” he asked, curious and afraid. I told him, of course, that it was because I was special, and he was not. I may have gone too far by warning him that all his teeth were going to fall out and vegetables would sprout in their place. Then he cried ... and forgot all about my teeth.

Twice now my dentist has asked me if I happened to notice that my teeth were crooked. I think he had been talking to my nephew. I played dumb, calling for a hand mirror as I peeled back my lips to investigate the situation. “By gum, they are crooked!” I exclaimed. “Can anything be done, doc? What are my chances?” He gave me a pamphlet on orthodontic payment plans. Did you ever notice how people in ads for teeth products always throw their heads back and hang their mouths open like cackling skeletons? I’ve never seen someone look like that in real life, and I hope I never do.

My husband hates the idea of me getting braces, because he thinks my teeth are “cute and unique” the way they are. I suspect he also likes having the straightest teeth in our marriage. His are like the set sitting on the dentist’s counter: the set that the dentist always picks up to show me what I should be shooting for. But I’ll allow that he has earned his pearls through years of milk guzzling and humble submission to wearing a chicken coop's worth of wire in his mouth. In middle school he even waded through a big, blue cafeteria dumpster to find his retainer (and hasn’t been able to stomach tater tots ever since). He probably wouldn’t want this getting out, but a few years ago, he underwent a procedure called “a gingival graft” to add more gum tissue to the exposed root of his canine—the result of harsh brushing. I’ve never had a gingival graft. I also have one less cavity than him. So I’d call the score about even.
I guess I have become more comfortable with my teeth since getting married. For years I close-lipped smiled for photos and got annoyed by people coaxing me to “smile bigger.” Once Kirsten Dunst hit it big, I was smally comforted, since our teeth are disordered in approximately the same way. Maybe I would be able to lead a respectable life. When I realized that my husband wasn’t recoiling in repulsion or shoving orthodontic brochures in my face, I really began flashing the chaotic enamel with abandon. Soon I became unselfconscious about it, for the most part. The times of embarrassment still come when I visit my nephew—or when I bite into a nice piece of milk chocolate and see the erratic indentations of my teeth, like some postmodern arch. Then I wrap my lips securely around my teeth—like an adolescent girl hides her hands in her cuffs—and imagine I’m Julia Roberts.