Topic: Sarah's Labors
Bob the Tooth
By Sarah
I was a weird and messed up five year old, sort of like Woody Allen with his neuroses except without the glasses and a couple of teeth. I can say this with pride because I have not been five for quite some time. For some reason being five and going to school for the first time brought all the horrors of the world to the forefront of my mind. Scary things like astronauts, meteors and wrinkles were a very real part of my world. Though nothing worried me more than keeping my teeth clean.
Part of going to kindergarten, besides adding, subtracting and snack, was learning about good hygiene. So obediently my classmates and I learned about the food pyramid and about washing our hands before we ate and after we went to the bathroom. Needless to say we soon came to the subject of our teeth. Teeth were extremely important to kindergarteners. We were all beginning to lose our teeth. It was a mysterious process. One day a tooth would become loose, providing us with a relief from boredom and the ability to gross out our parents. Then it would fall out and miraculously during the night, our tooth would disappear, having been taking by a small invisible woman. She did something with your teeth, though there was a running controversy about exactly what, and left money in return. So we were all very excited to learn why exactly all these mysterious processes took place.
To help us learn about dental hygiene we watched a cutsie animated movie. The star was Bob the tooth, Bob was a very friendly tooth who showed us around the mouth. He introduced us to other types of teeth and talked about how you should always brush your teeth and eat healthy foods without too much sugar. Then Bob began to grow yellow and these little bug like things began attacking him. The deep solemn narrating voice told us that Bob had a cavity because no one had been taking care of him. After the movie I decided that I would never get a cavity and took my mint flavored floss home with a higher purpose in mind.
For a couple months after that I obsessed over sugar. I would go to the store with my mother and have her read the nutritional information off packages out loud before putting any thing in the cart. I abstained from all forms of sweets.
One of the unwritten laws of kindergarten was that everyone was invited to everyone else?s birthday party. So while making the rounds to all the birthday parties I refused all the Thomas the Tank Engine birthday cakes. I got weird looks from the kids and even weirder ones from the parents. ?It?s okay honey, your Mom won?t mind if you have a slice of cake, ?a worried mother would say. ?Oh no, it isn?t about my mother, ?I might answer, ?I?m protecting my teeth.?
I do not still have this fear of sugar; I have embraced my sweet tooth with a passion. I have to admit that I could take better care of my teeth. I brush once a day and floss only when guilt pushes me over the edge. A couple years ago I was told that I had a cavity that needed to be filled. Besides being extremely worried about having a drill put in my mouth, I thought that maybe I should go back to my sugar abstaining ways, but it was only a passing thought. I also thought about Bob the tooth, being attacked by an angry swarm of plaque, the solemn narrator, sounding like someone announcing Armageddon said, ?Bob has a cavity.?