Technically I Didn’t Knock Your Teeth Out…. you did FINALE.

Tags

acting, childhood plays, diary, friendship, friendships gone south, health, humor, journal, kids, life, losing friends, losing teeth, memories, mental-health, teeth, writing, youth

Part 1

I met up with Blythe a day or two after the play. She hadn’t been in school since the second accident in a month that ended her up in the hospital, so I really wasn’t sure what to anticipate.

Blythe ran up and hugged me, she was crying like a baby but all of her teeth were intact. I thought maybe it was an apology for missing the play, or relief that she hadn’t lost her front tooth, but I was so very wrong.

***
We talked for about an hour about her brother doing some ninja kick bullshit in the air where he ended up kicking her in the face. She looked so sad and broken. She let out a really loud sigh and said “He knocked out my front tooth, Sonya.”

I looked at her horrified and almost disbelieving because she most certainly had every adult tooth in her face that she had had a week ago.

“The dentist had to pull my other tooth too because of some injury I sustained either during the kick or after the fall off the bike.”

One of my worst nightmares was coming true, only it wasn’t happening to me it was happening to her. I dragged my tongue across my two front teeth, as if her talking about losing teeth would make mine fall out.

“Do you want to see?” She asked me.

I so did, and so didn’t. I wasn’t sure what to say so I just stayed silent as she popped her fake teeth down, like dentures that weren’t glued in, nor very large. The doctors had glued two very real looking adult teeth to a retainer that she was able to click in and out of her mouth until all of her baby teeth fell out and then she would get real fake teeth that wouldn’t come out of place.

***
One day at lunch some boys were making fun of the way Blythe ate her food, I guess she chewed differently than most and it makes sense her front teeth weren’t really a part of her mouth. One of the boys asked her “Why do you chew like that?”

“You really want to know?” She asked evilly and I egged it on.

“Yeah, do you REALLY want to know?”

Both boys leaned forward like we were going to flash them our boobs or something. “YESSSS SHOW US!!!!!!!”

Blythe didn’t swallow her food, she clicked her teeth down and the boys looked like they were going to throw up on the table. One of them ran away screaming, the other one spit out his food and covered his eyes.

“That’s why kiddo.” She said putting her teeth back in place and finished her food.

“Awesome.” I said giggling.

***
Blythe and I lost touch, as children do when they no longer attend school together. We didn’t see one another again after that year until we were in high school. By that time Blythe hated me, pretty much blamed me for everything that happened.

In so many ways I was actually surprised, after all I didn’t knock her teeth out she did, but I guess we all look back on things differently. If her brother hadn’t kicked her, if we never found that Yosemite Sam card if she never met me she would (more than likely) have her real teeth.

,
Our experiences make up who we are, but we don’t have to keep swimming in the past – dwelling on what used to be, maybe I am just the face of what used to be.

Ridiculous Empty Text Messages at 4am

Tags

college, friends, humor, life, memories, morning drinks, shots, sleep, texts, youth

 

4:30 am I got a text from an old coworker ARE YOU AWAKE?

No, fuck who is awake at this time?  I am not 18 drinking morning shots just to prove I can hang with the boys… and actually hold my liquor (unlike the boys), though later in life that would prove nothing since I am pretty sure if I drank from 8pm-8am now with morning shots I would literally die.  I am not going to test this theory because I am not suicidal but it’s a safe bet.

I only read the message because I thought she might be having a crisis, and maybe she was, but starting out with ARE YOU AWAKE just pissed me off to no end.  I wasn’t but I am now, and for an hour I tossed and turned thinking to myself Go back to sleep, just go back to sleep.  While my dog cuddled up to me and sighed because I was disturbing his slumber.  Mike laid there sleeping like a baby, only nothing like a baby; that saying makes no sense, babies have a substantial amount of REM sleep and we adults hardly have any, not to mention the fact that Mike has never once woken up having shit himself, stood up on the bed crying waiting for someone to rescue him.  So Mike lay there sleeping like I should have been sleeping and my mind was reeling, back and forth from old memories and anger.

How inconsiderate of her to text me as ass o’clock, but how could she have known I am a light sleeper?  Then a memory crept in from college, years ago I had a rather large group of friends that stayed out until the wee hours of the night, every night, forever.   Apparently one of those nights a friend of mine named Lance text another friend Nicole who never joined us something random like “Hello” or “I miss you.”  At 9:30pm on a school night.  The next morning Nicole raised holy hell because she was so pissed off that Lance had the audacity to text her after 9.  I remember thinking it was insane and stupid to be that upset about a text that wasn’t that late at night.  I laid in the dark haze my eyes created staring out in the darkness, livid that my friend had text me at ass-o’clock I finally realized, we all have boundaries and while I believe anyone in the world would be pissed of over 4am and mildly perturbed about 9:30pm, no one can argue it’s not obnoxious being woken from slumber by ridiculous empty text messages that could have waited until day light.