As far as I know, I'm still supposed to be wearing mine. The orthodontist never said I could stop.
I'm not sure that post is really "fun".
I have two words for you whiners: tongue crib.
I don't even know what that means. Are we still in orthodonture, or are we getting into NSFW territory?
ditto for me, LB. I didn't throw mine away until some point in college. I'm due for a horrendous overbite in about five years.
I sometimes have dreams where I cannot speak clearly because I am wearing my retainer, and can't take it out. Often the subject of these dreams is NSFW, but because I cannot take the retainer out, I spoil the party, and the dream becomes SFW. My retainer continues to take revenge from its grave.
5 -- dreams are practically never SFW.
I had a dream in which a serial killer was killing unfogged commenters, and I was worried that I would be next.
He dismembered his victims' bodies (which were all clad in black ribbed sweaters); first the head, then one arm diagonally up from the pit towards the clavicle, then the other.
I can't remember; it was all commenters (possibly fictional) who had fallen by the wayside and weren't spoken of anymore.
The killer was kind of an open secret that no one really talked about, even though he was on everyone's mind.
Was it an allegory about Ms. PhD's banning? Who knows!
You know, this would be a great lead up to one of those things that ends in an odd phrase that seems like it should be a pun but isn't actually one.
Hey, whatever did happen to Arthur? And Mobcap? They haven't commented for a while.
I've actually received intelligence to the effect that someone else has been banned, and I'm not talking about abc123, either.
I suppose we just have to wait for the next indiscretion error to find out what he's talking about.
I had forgotten who, but I recovered said intelligence and now know again.
Ben, you are threatening me and can expect to hear from my lawyer.
Have a nice day.
As far as I know, I'm still supposed to be wearing mine. The orthodontist never said I could stop.
Me, too (or three, in light of text's agreement).
who do they think they're kidding, these orthodontists?
4: It's a line of spikes on the back of your bottom teeth that pokes your tongue, should you be, like me, gifted with an especially long one, so you can't rest it against your top front teeth. Oh, and I forgot about the palette expander. It fit into the top of my mouth and twice a day a parent would have to turn a key to crank your mouth wider. But often we'd forget, and then give it two or three turns at once.
I had a crown put in not too long ago which pressed against one of my lower teeth. I was supposed to wear something in my mouth when I slept to keep me from grinding my teeth. I couldn't stand it, and eventually the crown broke off.
I still have a gap in my teeth, which is why I smile with my lips pressed together. Altogether I've probably spent $1000 out of pocket, plus the money from insurance, getting that tooth fixed, and I look like a homeless anyway.
I had a dream in which a serial killer was killing unfogged commenters, and I was worried that I would be next.
Nice cover, but it's obvious that You were the serial killer.
Berube's story is sweet and all, but at what point does a kid get to say to his or her parents: "Fuck no, I'm tired of all this stupid-ass orthodontia, and if by now my teeth aren't straight, y'all better just get used to calling it charming!"?
(In my case, it was six years in, and yes, I've been watching old episodes of The Wire/)
In Bérubé's case, he states outright (in pt. 1 of the story) that they weren't trying to fix up their son's appearance, but make sure that he wouldn't have oral health problems.
I gave up when, a couple of months after the orthodontists told me I could stop wearing my retainer, they changed their minds. The crookedness probably isn't good for me, though.
Non-straight teeth, particularly when you've got a crowded mouth, are going to cause oral hygiene problems, that's a given. Some kids get fatalistic, all I'm saying.
Ah, memories of the dentist. (I think I've linked that before.)
I have pretty, perfectly straight, soft teeth. Or used to.
By the time they were sixty my parents had three teeth between them, and I'm only doing better than that because I spent thousands of dollars on them.
I have 19 teeth, of which about 13 are at least partly real.
Ogged has perfectly straight, white teeth. Like George Clooney in Intolerable Cruelty.
Which reminds me. People, Ogged never put up his personal ad.
I have pretty, perfectly straight, soft teeth. Or used to.
Aren't teeth ideally hard? The better to bite and chew with? I should think soft teeth would be less useful.
Soft, rotting teeth. But straight.
From my British perspective all this American dentistry talk is just wierd.
It's like Chinese ladies during the dying years of the Manchu era chatting about their memories of foot-binding.
Well, I have British teeth, but -- lest there be any mistake -- I'm not bragging about it.
I never have any clear idea what is meant by British teeth.
I have come to the conclusion that it means "teeth that haven't had thousands of pounds of money spent on them to make them cosmetically prettier". It certainly has nothing to do with the actual health of the teeth concerned.
[I will happily concede that many Americans I meet do have very tidy looking teeth]
My own teeth for example are perfectly healthy. I've had, I think, 4 fillings in the past 20 years and apart from that have never needed any dental work and only one of those fillings --- done because a molar cracked where an earlier filling had been --- has been done in the past 10 years.
On the other hand, my teeth are not perfectly white and they aren't completely straight (mostly the lower ones you can't see).
I suppose that makes my teeth 'British' teeth. :-)
I would happily keep my "healthy and unmolested" teeth and prefer that over years of orthodontic work in my teens and possible problems in later life caused by the work that would need to be done to make my teeth perfectly white.
My sister wore braces and it looks like such a miserable experience...
British teeth includes rotten, missing teeth, but also discolored and crooked teeth. I have all of those except crooked teeth.
Brits are all pooftahs too.
yeah, effete shirt-lifters, the lot of us...!
It's quite possible that I had one or more crooked teeth at some point, but if I did, they are in Heaven now.
Never had braces, and I think I logged a total of about four hours with the "appliance" that was prescribed for my teeth. Things seem to have worked out okay. Sealants are where it's at.
