Chew on This

As I age I notice my teeth slowly moving away from the perfect position my teenage braces had molded them into.  This means, I've developed "food catchers".  You know, those oddly shaped crevices created between your teeth as they twist back away from one another and come to work as crumb traps.  Chewed food can sit in any number of these spots for hours (or until fate shines upon you and presents with it a mirror.)

It stinks that I'm at the age that I have to check my teeth after every meal and every snack.  Little kids can sneak around for days without picking up a toothbrush, but their teeth still remain crumb-free and shiny white.  Lucky suckers.

Grown-up teeth vs Kid teeth

Food catchers aside, I have somehow lasted 37 years now without a single cavity.  Whatever God graced my teeth with in strength, He's deprived me with in color, though.  I have fluorosis.  It's the condition that causes spotty teeth that are never to be movie star white (unless you add together each platinum spotty spot and create a digital composite.)

I've read, ironically, that fluorosis is caused by receiving too much fluoride as a child.  Can you believe that?!  Shocking to any 80's child who had to gag their way through yearly fluoride treatments like I (our dentist's uncompassionate choice in fluoride flavor: Sour apple.)  They put it in our toothpastes, mouthwashes, even our tap water!  And, all to just cause my teeth to overdose on the stuff and have unruly color for the rest of my life.  (But, remember... No cavities!)

My cat even had pearly whites, for crying out loud.  And, I'm not even sure she was aware she had teeth!  With no toothbrush, toothpaste or dental floss to her name and an overwhelming precondition to munch on her own toenails, she got to bask in the favor of perfectly curled whiskers and glistening white teeth.

I'd like to bet my dog had whiter teeth than me as well.  Even after all that toilet drinking!  Although, as he aged it became the norm--from time to time--to find some of his teeth randomly sprinkled amid the family room carpeting. (Unattached to dog gums, that is...)  So, I guess I pull ahead of him in score there.  It's only fair.  I never had a fence-chewing habit.

As much as I tend to bust my own chops, I guess I'm glad mine seem to chew well.  Which I'm sure was the sole purpose intended at their creation.  Modern culture seems to no longer recognize healthy teeth as good teeth.  The trend has somehow moved from, keeping as many of your original teeth as hygienically possible, to chiseling out all of the above and replacing them with chompers that look like they came from a Mr. Potato Head kit.  And, people spend alot of money to have Mr. Potato Head's teeth installed!

People with properly functioning mouths pay someone to drill all their teeth down to nubs and leave non-tooth-materialed picket fences in their wake.  Not for any health reason, but just to make them that much whiter, straighter and larger!  This is a foreign concept to me because, when I want whiter teeth, I use MI Paste (a fluorosis thing) and whitening agents.  (Yeah, mine might not look like refrigerator panels, but they're not yellow either!)  To straighten, I endured my two-year sentence in braces like the rest of the middle-classed patient folk.  And, larger?!  If my teeth got any larger, I'd begin to grow rabbit ears!

But, here's living proof that people really do this:

And then, there's the people who walk into their dentist's office demanding, "Give me the 'Donny Osmond!'":

I can't imagine going to such extremes myself.  And, I find it quite humorous when I'm watching a movie or television show where the actor is playing a homeless person/pioneer/prisoner/cowboy from the Old West/castaway (Sawyer from Lost, I'm talkin' to you!), and they open their mouth to reveal a 21st century set of white Chiclets.  But, to each his own.

Better to wear Gary Busey's grin than this one!

Cheetos?  Meth mouth? Cheetos + Meth mouth?  You decide.