Most people don’t know this about me but I actually have a fake tooth. Well not completely fake but half of it is fake. Every tooth that erects from my gums is mine. There isn’t a fake tooth in there. They’ve been developing since I was born, I’ve drank plenty of milk to keep them growing strong, and have been fortunate enough to keep them all natural for this long in my life. Aside from half of one.

Which of course happens to be my right, if you’re looking at me the left front tooth of mine. That poor tooth of mine has been broken and chipped at least four times since I was in the fourth grade. Once from my brother kicking a box in my face, another was from chewing on a jawbreaker, (more like a tooth breaker) and once on a roller coaster from grinding my teeth so hard… I hate roller coasters.

The time I first chipped was way back when in gym class. Personally I loved gym class. I loved getting out there and competing any way I could. I even took AP gym back in high school. It was self proclaimed by me and my classmates but we were hands down the most advanced gym class our school had. Hence the AP gym class. That’s how serious I took gym.

Either way I digress, back in fourth grade one day it randomly started to absolutely pour down during school one day and since the teachers had originally planned today’s activities to be outside, they converted to throwing us together in a game of dodgeball inside. They split us all up into four different teams, each playing on one half to the basketball court, set the timer, and let us just go crazy. I just went too crazy.

Before they even blew the whistle to start the match, I told myself I was going to be the first one to get a dodgeball. It was just the competitor in me, I wasn’t going to lose to anyone. So much so that when they blew the whistle just as I rushed to the center line to be the first one there.

It was close, the person opposing me had got just as good of a jump as I did at the whistle so I had to dive to the line to beat the person (who was the fastest kid in the school) and won. I dove face first for the dodgeball and was the first person to the balls. But at what cost?

While I dove for the ball I stretched myself like I was superman flying through the air to make it there first. Unfortunately I didn’t land on the ball first. Instead my jaw smashed against the gymnasium floor and evidently that was when I chipped my front tooth in half. (my left and your right)

I didn’t think anything of my jaw hitting the hardwood. I just thought I hit the floor and felt fine. I was good, I was ready to compete. I didn’t understand why people’s faces were so worried about me so quickly into the game. We had just started but it wasn’t until my friend pulled out a mirror from her backpack I saw why everyone was so concerned about me. My front tooth split sailboat style. (Like the right way to cut your grilled cheese… diagonally)

It was only my tooth, I didn’t feel a thing, there’s no nerves in there. Hell I didn’t even know it happened until they said something to me. Personally I didn’t care about my chipped tooth, I’ve been going to the dentist all my life and I was certain they could figure out (otherwise what have I been paying dental insurance for) how to fix it.

I honestly didn’t care about my tooth, it happened. All I cared about was winning. If I lose a tooth then I lose a tooth but I’ll make damn sure I’ll win even at the expense of my tooth. I was ready to avenge the half of my tooth I lost to win that dodgeball game but my gym teachers seemed to have other plans for us.

Before they even thought about calling the nurse to help me, they halted all gym activity and put the twenty four of us kids on tooth duty. We spent the next forty minutes, basically the entirety of our class, looking for the bottom half of my tooth so I could take it with me to the dentist.

I just had no idea that a chipped tooth would wind up being just like a dislocated shoulder or a cold sore; once it happens once it tends to keep happening.