Took the hillbilly out of the girl

My mom was born without two of her adult teeth, so they just pushed her entire bite forward to close the gap. Then because most of her worst genes passed right on along to me (skin, nose, TEETH, giant ribs, probably moles if I counted mine up...), I was born with the same problem.

But since I lived in Arkansas when my baby teeth fell out, I was doomed to the hillbilly version of Mom's Missing Teeth, which means only one side was missing, which means they couldn't fix my smile by moving things around, which means OF COURSE THEY COULDN'T.

So my parents installed braces on my (mostly there) teeth to be sure I could have a dental implant and a chance at a normal mouth.

I just realized I failed the "normal mouth" test in more ways than one, but you can't correct obscene language with dental hardware, so again - not my fault.

My orthodontist was either an idiot or a fraud (based #12 on this list, and the fact that I NEVER BROKE MY NOSE and therefore began making up different stories about skiing accidents and pony kicks to appease him, I'm guessing he was an idiot) and allowed my canine tooth to move so that it blocked all access to my jaw, which meant NO TOOTH IMPLANT FOR ME.

Look at me...I'm crying on the inside *of my mouth*

At some point, Dr. Genius decided to attach a little fake tooth to my braces so I could pretend I wore shoes and had indoor plumbing. It would spin around on the wire sometimes, and that was kind of hard to explain to Joe, whom I wanted to feel my boobehs.

They went un-felt for years.

When my braces came off (after 3 years) but after we went to get my implant and the oral surgeon laughed us out of his office, we returned to Dr. Genius and had him PUT THE BRACES BACK ON in order to straighten up the canine tooth and make room for an implant in my jaw. He put the braces back on for another year.

The canine didn't move.

We gave up because, you know, I was kind of graduating high school and moving away from home and it's hard to make those regular orthodontic visits when you're in a different part of the country and stuff.

So I got a retainer with a fake tooth on it. It was my mini-denture, but it stayed put really well thanks to the retaining wires running all over the place.

Once the retainer grew old (you know, when my grand kids started asking why I wore antique dental hardware, don't I know retainers haven't been around for more than 1,000 years, like, I should totally sell that on Ebay and buy them candy), I paid (out-of-pocket) for what is far-too-happily-referred to as a "flipper".

No, it's not the good kind of flipper.

It's the gross kind. the kind you learn to pop out with your tongue, just to fuck with your friends' heads. Because it's both disgusting and it's horrifying in some completely inexplicable way. People shudder, like, literally when I do it. And I shudder myself because - somehow - my hijacked #7 tooth is the thing I am most mortified of in the entire world, including Hitler.

That bastard had all his teeth.

Maybe it's KINDA like a dolphin...

And this poor girl knows exactly how I feel:

But I FEEL THAT WAY NO MORE.

Last year, my hot dentist told me about a new kind of partial that won't damage the surrounding teeth *much* and won't have to be removed for cleaning or, you know, for giving blow jobs. (Seriously, have you ever choked on a big piece of plastic and then had it rammed FURTHER DOWN YOUR THROAT by a distracted recipient? It's not cool.)

This year, my insurance agreed to pay for part of the work, which is kind of a miracle because my hillbilly tooth hole has always been considered a preexisting condition by insurance companies and potential suitors.

Yesterday, I banished my flipper forever.

This machine carved my tiny new tooth.

This computer program made my teeth look like a very yellow mountain range.

And now I can smile without having to think, "SHIT. Did I remember to put in my tooth?" or "Fuck, I didn't expect to see my neighbor so early in the morning, TALK WITH MOUTH CLOSED" or *upon waking up with a killer hangover* "HOLY GOD which toilet is my flipper swimming in and how many times did I pee on it in the night?!"

Which means that now...I'm no so ashamed anymore. 


                                  

Here's me "before' with my flipper (third tooth from left)
It's darker than my other teeth because we went ahead and did some bleaching up in this bitch.

Here's the ::vomit:: shot.

My after shot, bitches!

My directly-after shot when I tried to smile but half my face was still numb. Damn. I coulda been Elvis.