All I Want For Christmas Are My Two Front Teeth

This morning, my tooth fell out.

Actually, I shouldn't be so dramatic.

This morning an entire tooth did not fall out of my mouth.

Rather, this morning, as I sat down with my plate full of bacon and blueberry pancake, bit into a piece of bacon and felt a funny sensation in one of my front teeth . . . a cracking sensation. When I went to investigate, I  pulled out a teeny white shell. The shell looked familiar, but I have to admit the first thought that ran through my head was "what the &*@#! was in that bacon?!" But I quickly realized, with a sinking feeling in my stomach, that the familiar white shell was the veneer that had been glued to my front tooth for more than a decade.

Since I was sixteen, I've had veneer caps on my two top front teeth. For whatever reason, both my brother and I suffered severe stains on our permanent top front teeth. No one's sure why. Something in the water? Children's vitamins? Who knows? The moral of the story is that the dentist decided the most fail-proof way to "remove" the stains was to cover them up with supposedly "permanent" veneers.

And it was fail-proof. .  .

See, you can even tell those aren't my "real" front teeth

Until today.

Now I'm missing the front of those veneers, exposing my weird, chiseled down "real" tooth, while back of the veneer still hangs on jaggedly. Trust me, it is not a look quite as cute as this:

SOURCE

As luck would have it, the dentist isn't open on Friday, so I won't know what's going to happen with this tooth of mine until Monday at the earliest. But I'm not in any pain, just a little self-conscious (the veneers always were a matter of vanity) and a little bummed out about more unexpected expenses. And while I certainly wasn't planning on having a tooth cap pop off, my brother has had both of his veneers pop off in the last few years so I knew I might be dealing with this problem sooner or later. Still, bummer.

I swear, all I want for Christmas this year are my two front teeth.

Are you listening Santa?