This tale explains how much trouble both of my parents will go through just to make me happy. As much as I've given them a hard time (like most children), I actually do appreciate the ridiculous nonsense of things my parents did for me, such as the Tooth Fairy.
See, for me, the Tooth Fairy didn't leave money. No no.
The Tooth Fairy left presents.
How did he or she accomplish this?
Was it through some magical, fairy means?
Oh ho, my friend. I'll tell you.
Flat things.
Whenever one of my poorly designed teeth finally gave up and fell out, I would get a new sketchbook, or sometimes a puzzle or a book... Flat things.
The puzzles were freaking awesome. I remember one of Dracula, one of The Toxic Avenger, one of the cartoon of Beetlejuice (it's Lydia and Beetlejuice riding a skateboard and it's so awesome that I had the thing permanently glued into a mini poster!), and even one of ballerina troll dolls.
I loved all these things as a child. And, for the most part, I still do today. ...Except for maybe the trolls. ...I was sort of obsessed with collecting those freaky little smiling bridge dwellers.
I had at least a hundred of them. They were slowly given away and sold at garage sales over the years.
...However, I did still keep a few. I kept ones that had traveled with me, and special costumed ones of things I still love. One is dressed as an Egyptian, for example. They are mostly in storage now, but... quite frankly so is a lot of my crap. When I have room to display everything (or I'm just finally at the point where I'm ready to give up some more children's toys) then I'll proudly get them out of storage.
On a somewhat related note, I was never a big collector of beanie babies, but I did wind up with (and still have) some of the cooler ones. I have the platypus, a ghost, a scorpion... You know... Ones like those.
Oh oh! Quick other story of my mom being awesome!
One year, for Halloween, my mom made a costume for me that to this day is still the most fantastic costume that I ever had.
I was a vampire troll.
I had fangs, puffed up, black troll hair, Mom did my make up in a troll-like fashion... She cut a costume out of felt-like fabric that totally resembled something my troll actually wore... For the feet, I wore pink tights over my sneakers and she drew freaking toes onto the tights.
I was awesome.
In any case, back to the Tooth Fairy.
Usually, my mom took care of "contacting the Tooth Fairy" whenever I lost a not-so-pearly white.
This time, I had a loose tooth that was ready to exile itself from my head when my mom had to leave for a trip. I don't remember where she went, but I'm sure it was lovely.
Either way, she made sure that the Tooth Fairy was prepared.
I went to sleep, head on pillow, content in the knowledge that I would still get a wondrous flat present for my tooth.
I heard a thump, and awoke.
See, my room was never particularly clean. These days, I actually have the ability to become frustrated at my own mess and take care of it. Then? Not so much. I had two big defenses for this. A: I don't go by "do as I say, not as I do", so until my parents cleaned THEIR room, I wasn't doing shit. B: this way I would be awoken to an intruder.
Case in point:
I turned to see my father, in his sleep attire (which was pretty much just his underwear and T-shirt), holding a piece of paper, whilst sporting a very panicked "oh shit" expression, staring at me like a deer in headlights.
"Uh... Yes Dad?" I had kind of always known that the Tooth Fairy was actually my parents. Now I just knew that it was primarily my mother's job. Clearly, this poor man was out of his element.
He handed me the piece of paper.
I wish I could draw out the whole thing, but my handwriting is not nearly as nice as my mother's. In fact, my dad, my sister and I all have almost the same handwriting. My mom's is the only one that is perky and legible and perfect. Her handwriting matches her personality well. Meanwhile, my father and sister are both left handed, so not only are their writing styles very difficult to read, but they also lean the opposite way like some freaky, mirror language. ...and mine is just a scrawl with no real excuse. I'd say "oh, I have that deformity in my wrist, remember?" but really, there's no reason. You, as my audience, get to see my neatest handwriting in my little illustrations. My neatest. Yeah.
SO! The letter said something to the effect of "I am sorry that I could not make it for your tooth just yet, but I have sent your father to give you this letter for me, in my absence." (Did she KNOW he wouldn't be able to accomplish this task, or what?) "Instead, take this as an I.O.U., and I will be sure to give you a gift soon!"
First of all, the letter took up a whole page, so it was actually much longer and more in depth than that. That's just the gist.
Secondly, all the periods were little teeth like this:
Yeah. My mom wrote a letter AS THE FREAKING TOOTH FAIRY and my father tried (and somehow failed, but it's okay... he means well) to hand deliver it to my pillow.
What can I say? My parents, in their own strange, collective way, have always been problem solvers.
For example, my parent's den was crooked.
Like, it sank into the middle.
I once told a friend that there were dead bodies under the floor, and as they decomposed, the floor sank in. For all I know, that may have been true.
So, I grew up with books and such crammed under lamps and furniture in an attempt to ignore the fact that our den was crooked.
This was the only part of the house that did this, and eventually my parents had the floor re-done so it was no longer an issue.
Still, for my whole childhood, I debated if a slinky would move across the den floor on it's own.
Anyway, I remember playing along with the idea of a tooth fairy for a while after getting that letter (that was all too suspiciously in my mother's handwriting), thinking that my parents would be depressed if they knew that I knew. ...I was also probably afraid that I would no longer get presents for losing teeth.
Considering all the work that's gone into my face dentistry-wise at this point, that was probably a silly fear. My two front teeth are dental implants. The two on either side both have caps because everything was moved over by one, after both of my lateral incisors were removed. ...And so, my parents are STILL helping me feel better about losing my teeth, to this day.
1950s swimmers with flower covered swim caps taking a dip in something fizzy, like a mimosa or something.