Friday, May 19, 2006

The Tooth Faggot

Sorry for the incredibly insensitive and polictically incorrect use of the English language, but I'm a redneck country boy and that's the way it's gonna be, so move along little dogey.

But I digress. You will understand when the post is over.

My son lost his first tooth last night. It came out eating a pretzel. So of course we had him put it under his pillow. At dinner he asked us how big the tooth fairy is. "I've never seen the tooth fairy, have you mama?"

"No I haven't," she said. In that we were being completely honest. Again the twinge of guilt for selling a myth. I can't help but think though, that I am discouraging rational thought.

This morning as I was sneaking down the stairs--as part of my normal routine--Jackson appeared like Samantha on Bewitched. You know, suddenly.

"Guess what daddy."

"What." My face was a mask of curiosity.

"The tooth fairy came last night."

"Are you serious?"

"Yeah, and guess what she left me?"

"What?"

"Five dollars!"

I'm pretty sure that, if he does eventually discover the truth behind the myth, say from one of his friends at school, that he'll allow this to continue.

Sort of unrelated, but connected by a tendril, is an old skit on Saturday Night Live. It turns out it was Dennis Miller's last day as the evening news anchor. Farley played guest speaker Stormin' Norman Schwartzkopf, responding to complaints from the gay and lesbian community in regards to his use of the term 'military fairies', applied to Pentagon insiders criticizing the Army. I leave you with Farley's brilliant retort:

Let me say right off that, when I used the term "fairy", I was speaking colloquially. Where I grew up in New Jersey, the word "fairy" was often substituted for other terms. For instance, on my block, the Staten Island Ferry is called the Statan Island Gay Boy. And, of course, we all believed in the Tooth Faggot!

14 comments:

Kathleen said...

$5??? Bloody hell, I was lucky if I got a dime! And it wasn't that long ago!!!!!

Scott said...

When I was six, I got 50 cents. Now that was 36 years ago. I'm no economist, but adjusting for inflation and cost of living increases, I probably shorted him by half.

Flood said...

We're working with the pacifier faerie, here, to be followed by the blankie faerie and the sucky-cup faerie. I'll need a second mortgage.

mr. schprock said...

I think your boy could get more selling his tooth on eBay. You might want to suggest it to him.

Bailey Stewart said...

It was .50 for me too about as many years ago.

You're not discouraging rational thought - you are encouraging creativity and imagination. I always think of the Natalie Wood character in Miracle on 34th Street and how she was never allowed to believe in any of those things - she had no imagination. Besides, you're also teaching him to believe ...

Natalie said...

mr. schprock~ Only if the tooth looks like Elvis or the Virgin Mary. If not, he'll have to settle for the measley $5 the Tooth Fairy is paying out these days.

Sadie Lou said...

5 dollars?!
Geeze Scott, you certainly didn't leave yourself any breathing room.
it was .50 when I was a little gal and now it's a dollar. Now that's inflation.

Beth said...

$5.00? Scott, how much can I sell my wisdoms to you for? =)

Farley had a comedic genius about him. He could deliver without offending because he was the overweight, angry, dumb guy ... not in reality, but he just played it so well. Well, yeah, he was actually overweight. =/

Toni Anderson said...

LOL--my DD got a looney a month ago! I thought that was pushing it :) For the top two I'm expecting to fork out serious money-- $5 for two??

So tired I can't see straight parenting--aint it grand :)

Toni Anderson said...

oop--needed a comma in there :)

Dixie Belle said...

Things have gone up! Five bucks was my son's weekly allowance when he was a kid.

Ultra Toast Mosha God said...

I used to get 50p per tooth (about US$1?)

I thought long and hard about suitable substitutes for teeth, thinking I could instigate some kind of long term investment plan.

Broken polo mints only worked for a while, as did tic-tacs.

Eventually I went bankrupt.

It was a sorry tale.

Scott said...

I guess if I had done the math, you know, 5 times how many teeth are in the head, times two, I would consulted the change jar instead. Oh well.

Tee/Tracy said...

LOL - It's funny how some things
like Saturday Night Live skits
are stuck in your head forever. Do you think we'll remember them one day when we have Alzeihmer's and forgot our daughter-in-law's names? LOL.

As for the tooth fairy, FIVE dollars? What is that? The yuppie
tooth fairy? Tooth fairy in this neighborhood gives you a gold
Sacajawea coin for your first tooth and 50 cents for every tooth
afterwards... (The Sacajawea coin is *kind* of a tradition from when I was little. Of course - we didn't have that coin. My Mom used to leave us silver dollars. It made it seem more magical.