Saturday, August 22, 2015

The Tooth Fairy Is Cutting Back – The Tooth and Nothing But the Tooth

First appeared on Blogcritics.



tooth1 Okay, there are more important things in the world like global warming and the condition of Donald Trump’s hair; however, upon reading a recent article in the New York Daily News that the dear old Tooth Fairy was cutting back on expenses, I felt that I had to take a stand on this and question the practices of this legendary and supposedly generous sprite.

First of all, the reported average amount that the fairy shells out per tooth just has to be wrong - $3.19 per tooth. The idea that she is counting out 19 cents in addition to the three bills per child is preposterous. Does she actually have time to do that with thousands of kids all over the country losing their teeth every night? Why doesn’t just she round it up to $3.20 or, if she’s really being careful with her pennies, round it down to $3.10?

tooth3Judging from my own household, my kids have been getting $1.00 per tooth for years. My son recently lost his tooth – he proudly displays the fact in the photograph – and he happily ran downstairs in the morning and showed me his dollar bill. That’s my proof that this article is way off on its estimate, and also on claiming that $3.19 is down from when the amount per tooth peaked at $3.70 in 2010.

Secondly, I have always had my suspicions about the Tooth Fairy. What does the imp do with all these teeth? Are they being harvested for some nefarious purpose? Perhaps there is some sort of black market headed by a pernicious puck who is melting them down for use in some evil scheme.

Thirdly, that $3.19 is really bothering me. Now this isn’t sour grapes, but I got a quarter per tooth as a kid, and I was as happy as Rush Limbaugh at an all-you-can-eat buffet. I never complained about a quarter. In fact, after one tooth came out and I saw that coin, I promptly went into the bathroom and started pulling on my other teeth to see if I could get them out too.

But thinking back on it, I felt weird about the Tooth Fairy when I was a kid. Like Santa Claus, there is something sinister afoot when you think about the supposed benevolence of their behavior. Santa has a mean side too – no doubt about it. Just ask any kid who got a lump of coal in his stocking. And there is something weird about both of them sneaking into the house in the middle of the night anyway while we are sleeping.

tooth2So when I was about six or seven I started picturing the evil Tooth Fairy. I heard her buzzing in my ear like a blood thirsty mosquito, saying scary things, and then slipping under my pillow and taking the tooth away to her sinister lair where she used it for purposes far beyond my imagination.

But I digress – now we are supposed to be dealing with a Tooth Fairy who may or may not be downsizing. Yes, we all feel the weight of prices even for the bare necessities in this economy. Maybe pixie dust is really expensive in the Fairyland Walmart, and that wing wax can’t be cheap either; however, an explanation is in order as to how some kids are getting more than others.

Perhaps she is giving some of these other kids more money, but then why do my kids keep getting that lousy dollar bill? If she’s cutting back then she had better be equitable about it. Something is rotten in the state of Fairyland, and we must all rise up and demand that the Tooth Fairy be fair to all kids. Is that tooth much to ask?

  Photo credits: parents.com, swiftcutter.com    

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