An inconvenient tooth
My 10-year-old son Jack accused me today of being the real Tooth Fairy.
"You just dress up in a dress with little pink wings and go around the neighbourhood, don't you?" he said.
I think this is most unfair. I haven't dressed like that for years. Besides, Jack has no real evidence to back up his Tooth Fairy theory.
This is not for want of trying.
My wife Katherine usually deals with most of the tooth issues in our house, but she was away on a business trip when Jack started complaining of toothache at the weekend.
So I booked Jack into the dentist yesterday.
The problem turned out to be a loose baby tooth that needed to come out.
When I was young if I hadn't been able to wobble it loose, a kind adult would have tied a piece of string between the errant tooth and a doorknob and SLAM. It might have hurt for a second but the pain could not have possibly been as severe as yesterday's.
And I'm not just talking about Jack's discomfort either. At least, he got to take his tooth home in a plastic envelop. All I got to take home was a $180 bill and the pain of that, let me tell you, was excruciating.
Later, when Katherine phoned home the discomfort grew even worse for me.
"You know what this means," Katherine said. "It means the Tooth Fairy is coming tonight."
Hmm. Well, er, um, that was the plan.
The truth is, while the Tooth Fairy was meant to be on his/her rounds, I was relaxing in the lounge, drinking a glass of red wine, listening to music and completely chilling out of this Mr Mom business. It was respite from the endless washing, ironing, packing lunches, cooking dinner, supervising homework, taking Jack to the dentist etc.
And it was just as well, as it turns out.
Jack, who had put his tooth in a glass of water by his bed, was mildly disappointed that the Tooth Fairy hadn't been in the middle of the night and exchanged the tooth for a shiny $2 coin.
But he was even more disappointed he didn't manage to catch the intruder in the act.
"I set a booby trap," he confessed today. He had put a few things up against the door and if anyone had tried to get into his room, the things would have fallen down, making a racket and waking Jack who planned to switch on his strategically-placed torch and caught the previously much-loved Tooth Fairy the glare.
If the Tooth Fairy had been drinking a glass of red wine at the time, mummy would have been appalled that he was drinking on duty. Think of the consequences. It would have been bad enough if he had tripped and spilt red wine on the carpet. But it might have been worse if the child hadn't awoken because of the noise and the Tooth Fairy, in his haste, fled with the wrong glass.
Imagine if Jack had woken in the morning to find his glass of water sans tooth exchanged for a wine glass of cabinet savignon. Or worse, merlot.
Imagine if the flustered Tooth Fairy, to settle his nerves, had felt the need to polish off the rest of what he thought was his glass of wine.
"It doesn't matter no one came last night," Jack said this morning. "I know it's you. Or mummy. The adults do it, don't they?"
"No way," I retorted. "I suppose you think I'm Santa Claus too?"
"Oh no," said Jack. "He's real."
Go figure.
Call me cynical, but could this have something to do with the fact that Christmas is just around the corner and the Jolly Fat guy, who looks a lot more like me than a fairy in pink wings does, tends to be a bit more generous than just leaving a shiny $2 coin?
Come back soon, Katherine.
©November 7, 2006 John Martin. All Rights Reserved
Four years earlier:
The whole tooth and nothing but the tooth
NB: I called this site Dunno because I kept drawing a blank when I had to put a name to it
Australian writer John Martin looks at the funny side of parenting in My Son Jack
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