It's All About Teeth

You wouldn't think anything so rock-hard could hurt so much. I mean, seriously. I don't suppose teeth look as dramatic as, say, ears, but they can crack nuts or shatter a cube of ice into a million pieces. My fingers can't even do that, and my fingers have all my arm muscles on their team. When it comes to the rough stuff, nothing really beats a good tough tooth.

Of course, I was a "metal-mouth" for about half of my school years. So in reality, I knew that teeth could hurt.

But unfortunately for me, I am a comfort queen. I will go to a bit of trouble to avoid pain. And I am a fan of letting the memory of pain fade away as quickly as possible.

And, of course, I would never do something like wear a retainer as maintenance to keep my teeth in place after the braces were off. That might hurt. It's inconvenient. It just doesn't work with the comfort queen persona.

To soften the picture, I really did intend to wear my retainers. I just didn't think they were that important. Initially, you know, my teeth seemed to be holding pretty solidly in place without much help. Anything that tough should be moderately stable.

A few months ago as I was pondering the fact that my lower teeth seemed to have shifted positions, it occured to me that maybe I should wear my retainers. And I might have been woman enough to follow through with it...except that they didn't exactly fit in my mouth any more. Twenty-four hours of trying to wear them relegated me to the depths of the soft food menu.

I returned to my comfort kindgom and looked forward to seeing my orthidontist...eventually...when I happened to be back in Washington.

Meanwhile, I secretly entertained high hopes of his diagnosis:

"Wow, Katie! You have incredible teeth. You have really good judgement too. You really didn't need those retainers. I mean, those amazing teeth haven't moved a single tenth of a millimeter since the last time I looked at them. You might want to see a counselor about your over-active imagination...."

So I saw him this morning.

And now I'm wearing my retainers and philosophizing on the subject of pain and teeth and...things like that.