Hate mail to the tooth fairy.

You're a B. We're over.

Dear tooth fairy,

We are no longer friends. You have not been a friend to me for years, and today was the last straw. Similarly to how you trade small sums of money for teeth, I too will be dropping some cash for a tooth. Except unlike the 25 cents you put below my pillow after five bloody hours trying to wiggle a gaping hole into my smile, I will instead be dropping 500 times that amount for a root canal procedure I have to get on one of my back molars.

That was me. Minus the pixie cut.

Haven't I been through enough? Since the time I was six years old I have had train-wreck teeth. Seriously, I  rivaled the most unhygienic British girl with my jagged misconfiguration of a smile. So of course, my darling parents got me into the orthodontist at a young age in which I endured three years of a palatal expander, lip bumper, head gear (a straight up halo style contraption), full on braces, rubber bands, all to reveal a gorgeous smile the day before my 8th grade dance. (Middle school, to say the least, was just as much of a train wreck as the placement of my teeth, due in large part to the head gear situation - as I am sure you can imagine). Tooth fairy -  where were you to put rewards under my head gear-indented pillow?

FYI: I don't weigh the same as apples.

Finally in high school I was in the clear and wore my retainers as religiously as I clung to my baby blankets every night. I was NOT going through that again. But the summer after freshman year of high school I had the grand idea to hang myself from a produce weigher hanging in my friends house, collapsing the entire fixing from the ceiling onto my mouth, pushing back a tooth and rushing me to the dentist in tears. (I just wanted to see how much the produce weigher said I weighed and if it could hold my weight. So sue me).

One root canal and a traumatic retainer readjustment later, I found myself finally in the tooth clear. My teeth appeared to all be in line - sigh of relief. Until I got to college, at which point I noticed that despite my loyalty to my retainer, my top alignment was shifting drastically and my two front teeth were no longer matching up. After all of the orthodontia, I wanted nothing more than to have the perfect smile I suffered for, and yet, YOU would not grant me this wish. So I got my wisdom teeth pulled (that was a gift comparable to a box of spiders) and decided to go back in to a new orthodontist for round two.

She has braces behind that smile. Swear.

Sophomore year of college, I got clear braces on my bottom teeth (which were still straight so I had NO IDEA why they insisted on bracing the bottom) and top braces bracketed to the backside of my front teeth so they could not be seen (Miley Cyrus style circa season 1 and 2 of Hannah Montana). For two years I had this "situation" going on in my mouth, which at times created a slight lisp. I even studied abroad in London with a jacked-up mouth, and when a bracket broke, I had to pay 80 pounds (aka 160 U.S. dollars) for a five minute fix. I had screws in my pallet to adjust my jaw and countless trips from my University to my orthodontist back home in Cary to see my treatment through. Braces round two finally came off Thanksgiving of my senior year of college after two years, but I still had 9 trays (18 weeks) of invisalign to endure, which I still wear to bed as a retainer today.

My dental hygiene is unmatched. I do EVERYTHING right. I wear my retainers, I floss, I brush after every meal. I am OCD about my teeth. My dentist LOVES me. But am I rewarded? Absolutely not. Instead, all of the years of battering brackets have weakened the nerves of my teeth and now a molar that had a cavity, has nerve damage and I need a root canal and a crown which is going to cost me $2,000. Luckily insurance covers about half.
Dear tooth fairy - you better cover the other half OR I AM COMING FOR YOU HEAD GEAR IN HAND FOR PAY BACK.

Forever on the side of Santa,
Jenny.