Hardball Negotiations With The Tooth Fairy
Hey, kid. I see that baby cuspid under your pillow. The copy of Llama Llama Loose Tooth Drama on your bookshelf. A handwritten note on your nightstand with crooked letters and… what is that, a butterfly in a dress waving a wand? Looks like someone just lost a tooth and is hoping to turn a quick buck tonight. All right, you got my attention. I’m the tooth fairy, and I’m here to see if we can work out a deal.
You know, I usually don’t even come out this far into the ‘burbs for a single tooth. The traffic, the gas prices, it just ain’t worth my time. But there was a fistfight at the middle school up the street. Blood-stained tooth pulp all over the basketball court. Managed to pick up some top-shelf grinders for pennies on the molar. So you’re in luck, I’m in town. Show me what you got.
Oof, how hard you grinding these chompers at night? A lot of wear and tear for less than a decade of use on these babies. Not to mention the distal demineralization. And is this a chip on the occlusal surface?
Best I can do for a mediocre-quality tooth like this is a nickel.
That’s less than you were expecting? Yeah, what can I say? Supply and demand, price fluctuations, all those buzzwords. The market for pre-owned dentin — building fairy castles, pulverizing into fairy dust, making fairy necklaces, whatever you’ve heard — those industries have fallen off a cliff since the pandemic. Don’t ask me why. Do I look like a fucking macroeconomist?
You heard your friend Jordyn got a glitter spray-painted $20 bill for losing a tooth at her Grandma Edna’s. So what? She got a sweetheart deal because Edna and I go way back. I owe her big for a critical shipment of incisors she got me during the Root Canal Crisis of ’06. I can’t be giving that kind of price to everyone. I’m already losing money in the dentition business as it is.
Besides, Jordyn’s ivories don’t have nearly as much plaque on them as your little snaggletooth here. Just saying.
You want ten dollars for that little chiclet? Good thing you’re asleep already, because you can keep dreaming, kid! My rule is: hard currency for hard enamel. I’ll give you a quarter. Take it or leave it.
You should consider yourself lucky you get paid at all. No one else gets any money for their mandible droppings. Shark teeth are free — I can pick up as many as I want from the beach. Selling elephant ivory is illegal — baby elephants trying to pawn their old tusks get arrested all the time. I’m this close to swapping out my supply of human canines for canine canines so I only have to pay in belly rubs.
Five dollars? Stop insulting me, or I swear to God, I will flap my little fairy wings and fly out from that little crack under your door or however the hell I got into this bedroom — which, come to think of it, shouldn’t you be a little more concerned about? How lackadaisical are your parents about child safety that any magical rando can just waltz into your bedroom and take your shit while you’re asleep? Maybe you should be asking them some questions about that, instead of trying to squeeze every last cent out of a hardworking fairy. This is a tough job, you know that? Santa gets milk and cookies and works one day a year. I get zero days off and a bunch of passive-aggressive notes from kids who lost the tooth they’re tryna sell but still wanna get paid. Un-fucking-believable.
Tell you what. Just for you, I’ll do one of those big silver fifty-cent coins. Final offer.
Two dollars for a two-th? You’re killing me here! Fine. But only if I can lock in the rest of your gnashers — including the big ones in the back — for the same price. And only if they’re brushed twice and flossed daily from here on out. You know, actual pearly whites.
All right, here’s your two dollars in the form of a weird bill with a picture of Thomas Jefferson that no one actually uses as legal tender. Nice doing business with you, kid. I’ll be back in a couple months for those molars. They better be fucking pristine.
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