Covering Tracks

While the rest of the world was waiting for the next American Idol contestant to be sent home, I was trying to cover the tracks of an incompetent tooth fairy. I managed to bluff my way through the worst of it but I had to finish the job and try to decide whether or not my bluff had worked. Here is what happened next…

With the hope of more money to come in his mind, the son headed out for school. He seemed relatively unscarred at the thought that the tooth fairy had forgotten him. The mom, still not sure whether he went for the explanation or just pretended to, wasn’t sure what to do next. How could she go through the day feeling like the absolute WORST tooth fairy in the history of the world (not to mention feeling like a pretty bad mom on top of that)? She went back to the son’s room; removed the tiny tooth; and deposited another dime in the tooth fairy box. That way, it would look like the tooth fairy had returned during the school day. The mom could explain that she hadn’t seen her come and go again because she had been there while the mom was out running errands. Perfect! Perfect, that is, except for the nagging feeling of having let her son down for no good reason. So, she did what any good wife would do. She called her husband so he could join her misery!

He answered his work phone with the voice that indicated he had checked the caller ID before picking up the phone.

“Can you think of anything that WE might have forgotten last night?” she asked.

He replied, “Well, both children were accounted for at bedtime. What did we forget?”

Because the younger child was close by, she told the short version of the story in a cryptic language that he was supposed to be able to figure out using the occasional words that she spelled out. After a couple of minutes, he caught on and the sinking feeling of wanting to put himself in the tooth fairy box began to grip him. She explained the story that they would BOTH tell when they were all together that evening. Quietly, he said “I’ll feel bad about this all day. I am officially one half of the 2 worst parents in the world!”

Knowing that her work with him was a success, she answered “I know. I didn’t want to feel this bad all by myself! See you later.”

The son arrived home from school with no comment about his tooth or the reaction of his classmates to his having lost it. Absolutely nothing that indicated what he was feeling (or what he believed about his treatment from the tooth fairy). Sometime before dinner, the mom asked if he had checked the tooth fairy box again. He seemed totally uninterested when he said, “Yea. I checked it.”

“And?” asked the mom, trying not to seem to anxious.

“She came back,” he said, still not terribly interested.

By now, the mom was acting like she was folding a shirt and straightening the covers on his bed. “Did she leave anything this time?”

“Another dime,” he answered. “Now I have 11.”

The mom was gaining confidence in the story but getting tired of having to play it out. “I knew she would come back,” she said.

“Yes,” the son answered. “She must have really needed my tooth!”

Tooth Fairy Incompetence

I have indisputable, undeniable evidence that our tooth fairy should be fired! On top of that, I have an admission of guilt. No, she didn’t make remarks about a women’s basketball team and she didn’t claim to know or be the father of Anna Nicole’s baby! She did, however, commit a terrible blunder. As much as I hate to admit it, what follows is a true story!

TUESDAY EVENING – After what seems like months of talking about loose teeth and watching him wiggle the loose ones for anyone that would watch, a son lost his “first” tooth while eating dinner at a restaurant. The dad managed to get him to the restroom before it came completely out (thus, making sure that he didn’t swallow it). Upon returning to the table, they nestled it safely in the change pocket of the mom’s billfold for safe travel until it could be placed into the official “tooth fairy box”.

Technically, this is the 2nd tooth that the son has lost but the first one that came out naturally. When he was almost 2, he fell and broke the corner off one of his front teeth. It was checked but, because there was no nerve damage and he was not in pain, the Mom and Dad were advised to leave it alone. They did until about a year and a half later when that tooth abcessed and it had to be extracted. The emergency extraction was the son’s first trip to the dentist and that is WHY he already had a “tooth fairy box”.

The family managed to get home from the restaurant; place the tooth in the box; and place the box under the son’s pillow without incident. The tooth fairy carefully counted out some change that would fit in the box and placed it on her nightstand. It would be the last thing she saw when she turned out her light and that would be a reminder. Or so she thought!

WEDNESDAY MORNING – The mom awoke and went to the kitchen to find the son sitting at the kitchen table staring at the official tooth fairy box. The mom, not able to see the box yet, said “Good morning”. No response. About that time, the mom realized what the son was staring at and what a terrible slacker the tooth fairy had been. How could she forget to pay for the first tooth this child had lost? The mom asked what was in the box, knowing that it still held the tiny tooth and wishing that she could, somehow, disappear into the box herself! Again, the son didn’t speak, but quietly opened the box and held it up for the mom to see.

“She forgot,” he said. He might as well have ripped his mom’s heart out with his bare hands.

The mom said, “What do you mean she forgot? The tooth fairy doesn’t forget! Let’s go look in your room and see what we can find.”

The son’s heart wasn’t in it but he followed his mom up the stairs and toward his room. When they were close the to bed, the mom asked “Which pillow did you look under?” He pointed and didn’t seem to notice when the tooth fairy managed to slide some money under the pillow and declare that it must have been there all along. He commented, like he was talking to himself, “I know I looked there before.” The tooth fairy breathed a small sigh of relief when he eagerly grabbed the coins and started to count. She even believed that she had dodged a bullet and averted the crisis when he said, “She still didn’t take the tooth.” Oh yeah…the tooth! How does the mom explain that the tooth fairy didn’t take the tooth?

“I bet she just forgot it. You should put it back in the box and leave it on your nightstand. I am pretty sure the tooth fairy will come back for it.” He didn’t respond to that because he was busy counting his 10 dimes and putting them in his coin sorter. In a minute, when the mom thought that he hadn’t taken the bait about the tooth fairy’s return, he said “Maybe she’ll forget that she has already given me money!”

TO BE CONTINUED…