Story 33 of 100
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The tooth, the whole tooth, and nothing but the tooth.
I cannot believe I still work for minimum wage. It is disgraceful. Santa Claus doesn’t. The Easter Bunny doesn’t No one else does — but I do. I get no respect, do not get me started! Too late, you got me started.
I come from a long line of Tooth Fairies. Like a loooong line — before Christianity, long before Judaism, before there was Buddha, there were us Tooth Fairies. My great-great-great … well, you get the idea … took teeth of Neanderthal children, in times of pre-history, under their rocks as they slept. We took the teeth of hunters’ and gatherers’ children. We took the teeth of children in the Dark Ages (practically for free), the Renaissance, and the Industrial Revolution, in the Jazz Age and the Great Depression — there, we took also took a huge pay cut.
But now, in the times of so-called prosperity? Punxsutawney Phil lives in the lap of luxury, just him and the missus. You ever wonder how a rodent got that size? The food! Everything sautéed and fried, buttered and sauced. What do the Tooth Fairies eat? You’re lucky if you find one of us who’s a vegetarian! Most of us are vegans by necessity — we scrimp on berries and mushrooms, all raw this and naked salad that! Now our life expectancy is barely a century! We used to live so long we’d actually meet our great-great-great … well, you catch my drift. We get the short end of the stick, we really do. And when we do, we get poked with it, more often than not. It’s enough to drive a TF to strike, I tell ya!
Of course no Tooth Fairy can ever strike. We depend on teeth for everything — it’s our currency, the material we build houses, furniture, fences, tables, almost everything made of teeth. Teeth are our livelihood, everyone knows it and everyone uses it. Plus, for some reason, no one respects teeth. What’s the first thing to go in a fight? Teeth. What’s the thing to black out in a vaudeville comedy routine? A tooth. Hardy har ha. I have become bitter in my middle age, I totally have. A Tooth Fairy is like a garbage collector of the myths and mythical creature world, and I am sick of it.
I may not be able to do anything about it, but I don’t have to take it with a good attitude. Screw them and the horse they rode to town on. Next time I’m at a party and Jack Frost has a few too many, I’m going to shove so many chocolate bunnies into his mouth, he’s gonna get a cavity — then we’ll see who gets the last laugh.
