
Here’s another annoying thing about growing older – your teeth start to crumble. The other day I was happily flossing (and therefore, I assumed, being smart) when a corner of one of my front teeth CAME OFF. It felt weird so I looked in the mirror and, sure enough, there was a little triangular gap. I wasn’t even eating crunchy food or biting confidently into an apple at the time. The injustice.
Since it was the weekend I put up with it, and hoped no-one would notice until I could get to see my dentist. It wasn’t sore thankfully, it just felt strange and I had to eat soft food very slowly and carefully. But the most annoying aspect was the odd noise I made when trying to say ‘pstpst’ to the cats. They gave me funny looks which is disappointing, though not unexpected – a pet dog might have been more compassionate. I spent the weekend smiling less, or less fulsomely at any rate, but Chris assures me that it was impossible to tell. Friends only noticed when I pointed it out (while looking for sympathy).
I also spent the weekend actively looking at other people’s teeth (sorry). And I noticed that very few of us have bright white rows of little chopping instruments in our mouths. We’ve got snaggle-teeth (usually the vampiric incisors), gaps and all sorts of little twists. It makes me a bit sad that cosmetic dentistry is taking over and these interesting smiles might soon be a thing of the past. I like how different we all are and I want to embrace our quirks and twists.
Having said that, I did go to my talented dentist in the end and she fixed it in less than twenty minutes. It’s as if the gap was never there. The rest of my teeth are still a bit wonky (and I’ve no idea what my ‘wisdom’ teeth are doing) but that’s okay. They work when I’m eating and they work when I smile. And that’s good enough for me.