Taking A Stand: Tooth fairy pays well these days
When I was growing up, back in the dark ages, everyone knew losing a tooth meant a visit by the tooth fairy.
All you had to do was place the tooth under your pillow when you went to sleep and the next morning there would magically appear a quarter in place of the tooth. I still haven’t the slightest idea of what would happen to the tooth, but hey, I was getting cold cash so I didn’t really worry about the antiseptic disposal of body parts. Back then, a quarter was worth something.
Of course, this was back in the early 1970s when hippies and flower children were running wild, roaming the country in their little flowery micro-buses, listening to Janice Joplin and Jimmy Hendrix (both of whom were still alive). Back then you could get a Coke and candy bar for less than a quarter.
Nowadays, the climate in the lost tooth market has changed. Given inflation and the cost of living, a quarter under the pillow just won’t cut it anymore.
I really hadn’t wondered about it for some time seeing only a bad case of gingivitis or a tough street fight would cause me to place one of my molars under the pillow. However, the question was raised this week when I saw my 5-year-old son wiggling at one of his bottom teeth. It appears he will soon by looking like Leon Spinks as his baby teeth begin to hit the floor.
Given this pending incident, I asked my wife what the going rate for teeth is these days when it comes to the tooth fairy. Her response was that some folks are putting $20 bills underneath pillows.
“Twenty bucks!” I exclaimed. “He ain’t losing a kidney. It’s just a tooth for crying out loud!”
Shoot, at that rate I’d be going around knocking out other kids’ teeth and putting them under my pillow at $20 a shot. A kid could retire early on that kind of money. Just do the math. If a kid loses like 20 teeth or so at that rate, that’s $400.
A kid with a mouth full of teeth could be walking around in brand new Reeboks, toting a Gameboy and listening to his new MP3 player before he’s 6-years-old, just by using his teeth money. Sure, he may be able to eat corn on the cob through a picket fence until he’s 7, but he’d have the goods.
Making matters worse in our case is the fact Jack has had extensive dental work in the area of fillings, which, by the way, are not cheap when it comes to kids. Now I don’t want my kid to suffer when it comes to his teeth but it’s been hard to swallow spending hundreds of dollars on fillings which are going to fall out along with the teeth in a couple of years. If anything, Jack should be paying us money when he loses the teeth.
So anyway, despite the fact we’re losing money over this deal, we’ve decided to give him two bucks a tooth, which works out to eight times what I got per tooth growing up. It’s a tidy sum of cash for a kid, but it’s not the $20 the rich kids are getting. I think giving a kid so much ($20) for a tooth not only spoils the child but it also subliminally promotes tooth decay in the later years as they equate loosing teeth with money.
However, to collect, Jack must produce the merchandise. Whether it be the old rocking-until-it-comes-loose strategy or the tie-the-loop-around-the-door-knob-and-slam-it routine (which never really works but it looks cool as long as someone else is doing it), I must have evidence to pay off. The “I swallowed my tooth during the night” routine won’t work. Heck, I’ve still got a couple of incisors in my gut I haven’t passed yet, but when I do, I want some cash.
(Duane Sherrill is a reporter for the Standard. He can be reached at 473-2191 or by e-mail at [email protected].)