The tooth fairy

Once again, I have no pictures. And I'm not sure I'll ever have pictures of a tooth fairy, new camera lens or not. I fear that I will be breaking many hearts once again with my tale of the tooth fairy, but it needs to be said. Yet another time will I delve into the reality of the Faerie world, and reveal the perilous and sinister nature of the land that modern day people have begun to think of as enchanted. Indeed, things are not what they seem.





For a few years now, I've been fighting my kids to brush their teeth with a nightly threat that if they don't take care of them, their teeth will fall out, and then where will they be when they want to enjoy a chewy snack? Hm?





Unfortunately, my threat has backfired now that my 5 year old has discovered that her teeth will fall out anyway, and it has nothing to do with how well she cleans her teeth. The most exciting part about this is that there will inevitably be a visit from something called a tooth fairy. Lilly is 100% convinced that she will receive a present, as though the little beast were akin to Santa Clause or the Easter bunny.



As a child, I received money. And the tooth fairies that visited me were generous. My husband said that the tooth fairies who came and took his teeth were stingy, and he would get a quarter per tooth at best, with less money if it had a filling.





Most people and children imagine the tooth fairy as a woman, with lovely locks of curly hair, pink wings, a wand and a tutu. They are sorely mistaken, and if one saw a true tooth fairy, they might be terrified, and flush their child's tooth down the toilet instead of allow them to place it under their pillow.





Tooth fairies are not ONE lovely lady, but in fact, they are a tiny race of winged fairy related to the Ogre, the same way that raccoons are related to panda bears. They are roughly the size of a woman's thumbnail, and swarms of them live in hives, though they don't seem to have a queen that they report to. Generally, tooth fairies belong to the winter court, yet their summer hibernation is restless and they wake frequently to search for food- which happens to be bones. (Remember how Ogres grind your bones for bread? Yeah...well, makes a lot of sense now, how tooth fairies are related to Ogres, doesn't it?)



Tooth fairies travel much like a bat does, with sound that reverberates and tells them where objects are. Since you now know that this is the way they get around, it shouldn't be a surprise that they don't have eyes at all, only smooth indents of skin where eyes should be. They are genderless, with a gray, whitish color of skin and teeth as sharp as razors.





A swarm of these could be quite dangerous if it were big enough. (Dipping ones hand into a pool of piranhas come to mind.) However, unlike swarming insects, such as honey bees or wasps or ants, Tooth Fairies have zero organization. They live together simply because there is safety in numbers, but they are greedy and selfish and do not share the location of their gatherings. Chaos reigns among them.





Luckily for us, since Tooth Fairies are so tiny, one whole tooth does more than enough to satisfy their appetite for a long period of time.



Unfortunately for us, if we sleep with our mouths open, we are subject to the possibility of a tiny fairy swooping in for a dainty nibble on our pearly whites, leaving what dentists call a 'cavity' in it's wake.





As far as money goes, we must never forget that while we find that Tooth Fairies are chaotic and nasty little things, they also, naturally, must adhere to fairy rules and customs. You leave them a tooth, they usually leave you money, or a gift, or ....something.

The problem with this is that their being bound to give you something in return for your tooth means that it can be anything- and usually the money, stick of gum, or even the butterscotch hard candy- ahem- wrapper, comes from Mom's purse that's lying open on the table, or dad's wallet that has been tossed on the coffee table as opposed to the Tooth Fairy's own personal stash. Tooth fairies, unlike other fairies, are not very organized and do not keep tabs on things like this. they live to survive as opposed to living to thrive.


Anyway, it's been done for thousands of years, and in my research I have still been unable to find a single account of anyone being killed by a Tooth Fairy or even many tooth fairies. They're scary, demonic little things, but really, they're harmless. Let your kid have their extra coins. But try to make sure they sleep with their mouths closed.