I got my braces off this afternoon and the moment I opened wide in the mirror I saw that guy on the left staring back at me (minus a flaxen miss on my arm). My teeth look and feel super-colossal to me right now. Don’t worry, I’m chalking it up to a first world problem.
Soon I’ll be used to seeing all that white when my lips part, but for now I feel like I’m forcing those around me to survey ghastly, exposed bone. If I made you laugh and you lifted up your shirt to show me your naked rib I might black out or wail, “PUT THAT AWAY!” Thankfully, no one has had that reaction.
It felt amazing to strut into their office knowing I’d soon prance out a woman who can finally brush and floss in under half an hour. The removal was a snap, literally, but the impressions that followed were not. That was more like a crackle and a pop. Ouch.
I guess you could say I have a bit of a freakishly runty mouth, and the impression tray is seriously just the heel end of a men’s shoe size 18 insole. I’m convinced. Oh, with a giant wad of wet, grape flavored plaster smeared on top of it. Mmm, open sesame!
The first technician’s technique was questionable. She put me in a headlock, shoved it into my mouth, and held my head against her boob until the plaster hardened. It didn’t take the first or second time, and by the third I was losing focus. That focus being: DO NOT LAUGH, APRIL! I’m sorry, but by the third time she had me in that breast-y sleeper hold I could not hold it in any longer. I spit plaster and gave myself a pretty sensational, violet beard.
She called for backup and it just so happened to be my favorite orthodontic technician of all time, Deb. We bonded before my surgery over a love of pizza and fear of skin grafts. She even sent me a post card once to make sure I was recovering well. I read it to myself in her pack a day Selma/Patty Bouvier voice and cried the day I received it.
It took Deb two tries, but we finally nailed it. I was out the door with a “CONGRATS!” balloon trailing behind me and a smiley face bag loaded with candy from the FORBIDDEN FOOD list they gave me two years ago.
I brought an apple with my lunch in hopes that I’d have the guts to bite into it, but I chickened out and sliced it up instead. Snore.
It reminded me of the time I had a cast removed from my healed, formerly broken wrist. I refused to use that arm for days because I harbored irrational fears about it breaking again. My mom forced me to open and close the sliding side door of our family mini-van with it while I grimaced and whined.
If she were here now I imagine she’d make me open my own car door with my teeth.
Congratulations!! :-)
Thank you, Ordy!
I ate approximately half of the candy in my congrats bag to get a head start on future cavities.
Awesome!
Wait, there’s more. There’s gum disease, dental implants and gum surgery. I once was in an earthquake with my oral surgeon and she was all nicely spattered with MY blood and the walls began to shake. We both ran flapping down the hall. This is a true story. Honest. ( a cautionary tale)
Have a great sparkly smile and use floride, fer cripes sake.
I remember getting my braces off and I too thought my teeth felt HUUUUUGE. And slippery. :) Fun times.
I’m excited for you! :)
Also when you move to Austin, we have to either be roomies, or at the very least, live in the same apartment complex. ‘KAY?!
(Again I just read like 3 of your posts for the first time. I suck at keeping up with wordpress!)
Hey, I read a lot of blogs on a daily basis and for the most part, people lack substance but, I just wanted to make a quick comment to say GREAT blog!…..I”ll be checking in on a regularly now….Keep up the good work! :)
- Marc Shaw
Ok, April. Call home. Check in. Something. Dig out from your move and post please. You know I have an unhealthy interest in your (ahem) life. Don’t make me worry that you’ve been carried off by aliens. Are you in Texas? Aren’t there an inordinate amount of aliens there?
Love, The Tin Man