"Death awaits you all . . . with nasty big pointy teeth!"

Today I’ll talk about my teeth. My imperfect teeth. When I was twelve or thirteen and all my friends were getting braces, I could only think about how much I hated my teeth. I wanted mine to be perfect, too. Perfect and white and straight and just . . . perfect. We couldn’t afford to make my teeth perfect, and that devastated my poor preteen soul. I used to feel ugly because of my teeth. See, my two front teeth on the top are kinda crowded. The left one crosses over the right one a little bit, and the one just to the left of that one decided to show the first one up and cross over even more! My bottom teeth are all right, but my canines are weird and the left one isn’t even pointy. And the teeth in the very middle are a little farther back than my canines, I think as a result of those years of woodwind playing.

Two of my favorite things are made possible by teeth, though. Number 1: Eating. It’s a good thing I have teeth, or else eating steak would be an instant death wish.

Number 2: Smiling. In the words of Buddy the Elf, “I just love to smile. Smiling’s my favorite.” It’s contagious, and when I’m smiling I know I’m either happy or well on my way to getting there.

My crooked teeth are a blessing.