I have never been a fan of perpetuating childhood mythology. I think it comes from being a perceptive child and not prone to believing the unbelievable. My brother and I spent an inordinate amount of time attempting to debunk these myths, wheedling my father in attempts to coerce him into confessing. We caught “Santa Claus,” after staking out our Christmas tree and discovering our parents in the act of trying to sneak a rocking chair under it. We never did manage to empirically disprove the existence of the Tooth Fairy, however.

I was content with the idea of never indoctrinating my children into the cult of childhood mythology. I felt, and still feel, that for some children it adds whimsy to their lives and to others it is an abuse of trust. Unfortunately, society has done it’s job well by indoctrinating my children by proxy. I decided that it would be more harmful to disavow any knowledge of the Tooth Fairy or Santa, and to crush the flare of whimsy, than it would be to play along. What can I do, argue with my five year old that his teacher should never have convinced him of the existence of a fantastic winged creature with an affinity for princess dress up and a macabre hobby of collecting teeth and trading them for money? That this this “fairy” doesn’t exist and so he shouldn’t expect any majestic transformation or presents?

Right. I do have a heart, you know.

Led here against my will or not, on Saturday, I was faced with the reality of perpetuating the myth of the Tooth Fairy. I dodged the bullet the first time my son lost a tooth because he lost the tooth at school and was never able to find it. He probably swallowed it. This time, however, he flourished his tooth and grandly pronounced that now he could put it under his pillow and reap his justly earned reward.

Let’s talk logistics for a moment. Have you ever tried to accomplish this feat? For all of my father’s faults, I have to lay the laurels at his feet for his masterful sleight of hand. The man was a magician. I have not inherited this knack however.

When the tank lost this tooth, I cleaned it, dried it, and placed it in a ziplock bag so it wouldn’t get lost. I fully intended to have the entire package placed under the pillow, convinced that the Tooth Fairy was methodical and also averse to handling biohazard. Unfortunately, lunasdad and I were not on the same page at bedtime. When lunasdad put the tank to bed and tucked him in, he removed the world’s tiniest incisor and placed it, loose, under the pillow.

Was that a crack of thunder provided by my own personal rain cloud? At 1am, I remember that I am supposed to sprout wings and somehow work a miracle of dental alchemy: turn a discarded tooth into money. “How much?” was under debate (we decided a dollar was sufficient). In a stroke of creativity for which I would hate myself and the world later, I tied a bit of ribbon around the rolled up dollar. In a cloud of self-satisfaction, stealthily made my way up the stairs to my son’s bedroom.

Several obstacles faced me, because bad luck travels with me like a fine mist.

First: My youngest son decides that tonight is a good night to start laughing in his sleep. Really???

Second: The tank is a restless sleeper who tends to wake at inopportune moments. I know that I have to be on my toes here because at any moment he could wake to respond to his brother’s laughter and wonder why his mother is skulking in the dark in his room, on her tippy toes, cartoon-style, with a dollar bill in one hand, elbow deep under his pillow with the other. Right!

Third: …Have you ever tried to find a child’s incisor under a pillow??? It’s approximately the same size as a grain of rice. I have finger nail clippings bigger than this tooth, and it’s floating somewhere under the Fort Knox of my son’s pillow.

Fourth: Because, of course, in his restless meanderings around his mattress, my son is half under his pillow and half on top of it. *tsk*

So now I really am skulking in the dark trying to figure out how the hell to pry the pillow out of my son’s grip without waking him, finding the tooth, replacing the pillow, and shucking the dollar under it. Did I mention without waking the kid?

Well, I decided “Bullshit” to that; I was going to be a maverick fucking Tooth Fairy. So I woke him up.

Maverick Tooth Fairy: “Hey, you gotta go use the potty.”
Sleepy kid: “…wha…wha…huh?”
MTF: “You gotta go pee in the potty, I’m going to bed in a minute and I don’t want you to pee in the bed.”
SK: “But I don’t have to go.”
MTF: “Yes you do.”
SK: [sleepy sigh]“Okaaaay.”

Yes, and while he was gone, I ripped that bed apart looking for the fucking tooth, found it, dumped the cash, replaced the pillow, hurried the kid (who really did probably need to pee anyway) out of the bathroom (“Hey, don’t fall asleep on the bowl, go back to bed.” “I’m not asleep!” “Good, go to bed”), and tucked him in whereupon he promptly started sawing logs.

Did my travails end here? Oh no, that was just the thunder and lightning; here comes the rain.

No, because I have the only child in memory who doesn’t actually check under his whole pillow for the Tooth Fairy’s treasure. No, instead I have a kid who wakes his parents in distress at 4am because the “Tooth Fairy didn’t take my tooth!” He’s there, at the side of the bed, holding a mystery object (which he proceeds to drop onto the carpet and which I am convinced was a figment of all our imaginations) proclaiming that the Tooth Fairy failed in her duty.

When I know full well that bitch went above and beyond the call of duty and most definitely is in possession of the tooth AND went a little extra to leave the money with a BOW around it. I’m crawling around on the floor of my room at 4am trying to figure out just what the hell that boy brought us if not a tooth, when I finally just ask him, “Can you just go and look again??” At which point he excitedly exclaims that there is, in fact, a present from the Tooth Fairy and of course all is right with the world. “Good, the sun is not up yet, go back to bed.”

But WAIT. There’s more at 7am, when the tank decides to throw some kind of manic shit fit downstairs in the house, waking not only me and my husband, but his little brother. He is screaming at the top of his lungs, and stomping around, crying, declaring that he is unhappy and that he wants to be happy (or something). I run downstairs thinking that there had better be some kind of serious emergency happening. When I get to the kitchen, he’s standing there with the dollar and the bow, sniveling. I startle him and ask him “WHAT is your PROBLEM?” and he says:

“I can’t get the money back in the bow.”

I’m pretty sure there was a cosmic “Oh. Kid. It’s been nice knowing you but that was the wroooooong thing to say.”

So, fuck you Tooth Fairy.