Poor mini Bow Tie o’ the Day has to pose with my Sophomore yearbook photo, which just happens to highlight two of my worst features: bad hair and bad teeth. This is the most curl my hair ever held. My hair just wants to be straight. (Insert your own jokes here.) I’ve since handled my hair mostly by going with short cuts, in which the cut itself is the star.
The true culprit I hate in the picture is the sorry state of my teeth. I come from a long line of genetically bad teeth, so there was really not much I could do to keep my teeth white and shiny for the world to see. They were also prone to chipping. I chipped a tooth on a Rice Krispies square once. Oh, and by the way, my teeth hurt like you wouldn’t believe—all of them, all at once, down into the roots.
Like any teenager, I was self-conscious about every part of my body. Thanks to my teeth, I regularly got to hear not-so-nice comments about my hideous choppers. I didn’t really belong to a particular group in high school. I flitted and floated from one crew to another. I got along with just about everybody, which meant the cutting comments I heard about my teeth were coming from people I considered to be my friends.
Never smiling was not an option for me. Have you met me? I’m a smiler. Since those few who hassled me had their own imperfections, I could’ve thrown stinging comments back at them with the added jab of using vocabulary the dastardly hasslers would have to find a dictionary to look up. But I knew them and their families, and it wasn’t my style to handle things that way. I just kept on doing my own cheery thing. Besides, they were my friends. They were rude and stoopid friends, but still… I knew—or at least hoped—they’d grow out of it. Some did. Some didn’t. If you were ever a teenager, I’m sure you know what I mean, because every teenager gets teased about something. The sting goes deep, but it can make you a better person if you let it.
I knew I’d grow out of my teeth because soon my mouth would be mature enough for me to get caps, which I did just a few months after this pic was taken. Caps would be only a temporary and cosmetic solution, though, because they wouldn’t solve the tooth pain. Nope, I knew I was inevitably headed down the happy trail to dentures at a very early age, after my mouth matured for good.
While most teenagers can’t wait to be old enough to move out of their parents’ house, or go away to college, or get a real job, or go on a mission, I was twiddling my thumbs and killing time waiting for my mouth to be old enough to get all my teeth yanked out to make room for a set of white-toothed, painless dentures. I got my wish when I was in college and almost 19.
BTW Even though it’s been nearly 40 years since I heard the last of those hurtful comments, you’ve probably noticed I don’t show my teeth when I take selfies. Without even thinking about it, I still carry the stoopid past comments about my stoopid teeth despite having perfectly formed dentures. Closed-mouth smiles are just a habit of mine from way back.
Made me sad to read this. ☹️