The Tooth Fairy is an Irresponsible Slacker

After weeks of persistent nudging, the V-meister finally wiggled her first tooth free very early one morning last week. Very early.

Because the ragged little pearl was presented to me in bed a mere four hours after I had finally fallen asleep for the night, it was difficult to muster up the enthusiasm I'd always planned to display upon such a momentous occasion. My morning breath and I congratulated V-meister as heartily as we could, advised her to keep the tooth safe for the Fairy, and gave a brief lecture on the importance of going back to sleep.

The V-meister and her tooth climbed in beside me.

"Are you sure you don't want to put that tooth on the nightstand?" I urged, eyeing the impossibly tiny specimen my daughter held precariously between two fingers. No. The tooth would remain in V-meister's possession, and she would hand it off to the Fairy herself.

Soon it became apparent that the V-meister, who was trying to be as quiet and unobtrusive as possible, was expecting the Tooth Fairy momentarily. Unfortunately, T.F. is union and her shift was over for the night. Also, she'd had a few glasses of wine with dinner and stayed up late watching the Colbert Report. The tooth fairy, I explained, would not be making her appearance just yet, but she would love it if the V-meister tried to lie in bed quietly until the alarm went off.

I rolled over and feigned a deep sleep. Moments later, there was a great rustling of sheets, followed by some scrabbling which robbed me of my covers. Irritated, I drew those covers back over my body in a rough, impatient manner, causing the tooth V-meister had inadvertently dropped somewhere in our king sized bed - and had been desperately trying to locate - to become airborne and land in an undisclosed location. And thus an earnest, yet futile early morning tooth search and recovery mission was launched while a hapless, grief-stricken V-meister looked on.

That evening, the V-meister went to bed toothless on several levels. We assured her that the Tooth Fairy, with her X-Ray vision, would be able to find V-meister's tooth wherever it may be. It was only after she had fallen asleep that P-Dawg finally located the renegade incisor on our bedroom floor. It was too late for V-meister to put it under her pillow, so P-Dawg placed it for safekeeping on top of our dresser, where it was accidentally disposed of during a vigorous dusting session the very next day.

Luckily, we were granted a chance at a do-over when a another tooth jumped ship three days later under our babysitter's watch. She had the foresight to immediately put it in a ziplock baggie and place it directly under V-meister's pillow at bedtime, where it was later spirited away without incident by Alert and Responsive Tooth Fairy.

P-Dawg says that in ten years time V-meister won't give a crap whether I saved her first tooth or not, but I still mourn the one that got away.