Perfectly straight teeth have swept first world nations across the globe. As orthodontic technology becomes perfected, gapless, neatly rowed teeth have become the "ever desirable" norm. No mommy or daddy wants their kid to be all crooked and snaggle-toothed. If the insurance “covers” braces (meaning paying about a third, if that), then why not take little Suzy or Timmy to an orthodontist and drop tons of hard earned cash so they can get that perfect smile? It’s only cosmetic in most cases, sure, but who doesn’t want their kid to have a winning smile like everyone else does?

Upon my dentist's suggestion, Mommy and Daddy set out to find an orthodontist. They never had braces and seem to be doing fine, but if I could be given a normal, beautiful smile, why not? “Why not?” indeed. Thing is, as with most doctors, patients have to take the orthodontist’s “word for it.” All those plaques on the wall mean something, right?

Most folks wouldn’t know a good orthodontic idea from a bad one, though. Ortho says that the roof of your boy’s mouth isn’t wide enough and putting a bizarre torture device in the roof of said mouth that you have to crank with a small key every night to spread that top palette apart, it must be medically sound, right? It looks painful, but it's not. Of course not! And if that same upper jaw that’s being spread also jets out past the bottom jaw a little too much, let’s bring the bottom out some with a crazy plastic and metal monstrosity the kid can just wear every night. Oh, he’ll sleep fine. Just fine. He'll barely know it's in there.

So, going from a weak-chinned 11-year-old lad with crowded teeth to a lantern-jawed 12-year-old with a brand new giant gap between my two front teeth was all part of the process. Okay, yeah, the boy’s looking a little freaky, and, sure, that space between the front teeth wasn’t there before, but it’s from widening the roof of his experimental super mouth. All’s well. Give me money and see you in a couple of weeks for more wires and rubber band implementation. The boy’s gonna have some seriously straight teeth -- movie star teeth!

After a few years of that, new space between my front teeth having come and gone as my upper jaw was now supposedly plenty large, my lower jaw was now sticking out well past my upper -- having been overcorrected -- and some adjustments needed to be made. Headache inducing headgear was given to me to wear while sleeping, to push that bottom jaw that had been forcibly pulled out back to the right place. Good times. It was all taken in stride, though. For a teenager, this was pretty much expected -- many classmates also had mouths full of metal; we were all works in progress. In a few years the braces would be off, and life could begin anew! I grinned my metallic smile in anticipation of the great times ahead, filled with the wondrous magic of straight teeth!

Finally, around my shiggidy-schweet 16, the braces were off, and an unseen retainer was cemented to the back of my front upper and lower teeth to make sure no shifting should occur, thus preventing all new unsightly spaces. I was ready for my close-up! Sure, that pesky bottom jaw still jutted out a little too much, having started out a little too far back, but the kindly orthodontist had tried to adjust my teeth accordingly. Maybe not exactly how they "should" be lined up, but I was assured it’d all fit together okay and that my jaw locking would correct itself in time. Just don't open your mouth s'darn wide, ha ha! No, no need for surgery. It’s all good. Just keep wearing that headgear and this $400 plastic mouth guard to make sure those newly perfect teeth don’t grind under the power of that now huge lower jaw. Man, really did help that one grow. No need for surgery, though. All of this expensive gear should take care of it. Moneymoneymoney!

Knowing little to nothing about orthodontics, my parents and I just nodded. Sounds good. Here’s more money. Thanks for… all that stuff.

Now approaching thirty, the teeth aren’t as straight as they were after my last orthodontist appointment six or seven years ago. A space has appeared between some of the front ones, as that jutting jaw constantly hit the cemented retainer and broke it, allowing the once perfect teeth to shift. And that clicking of the jaw has developed into a pretty uncomfortable grind with less and less occasional locking. Now on the other side of the country, unable to visit my old orthodontist and pretty sure I didn't have the means to successfully sue him, I wasn’t sure what to do with that lower jaw now chipping and filing away my once perfect front teeth. The jaws that never really fit together after all the orthodontics got progressively worse, a constant space between my top and bottom back teeth that don’t touch when I bite down, making chewing an adventure and putting further stress on those front teeth.

One thing I knew: I didn’t want goddamn braces again. What about that surgery I’d avoided? Oral surgeon after oral surgeon agreed that that bottom jaw stuck out an awful lot, and the top jaw isn’t quite big enough to fit in with the lower one. No one could believe I once had an overbite, that my lower jaw was too far back and weak in its original, natural state. Experts confirmed that surgery has been in order for years, and, if that wasn’t enough, my teeth need to be rearranged to fit correctly for said surgery, and for that… braces are necessary. A far cry from that 11-year-old, this is an even less happy prospect. Spaces between teeth here and there be damned, I tried to see if anyone would just do the surgery just so I could chew normally and not get lock jaw every time I opened wide for a tasty burrito without more metal in my mouth to no avail.

So. Braces. Part two: about nineteen years later. Yay. Mad cash will once again be dropped (this time out of my own bank account instead of my parents’) to get those oh-so-attractive brackets and wires cemented to my once briefly “perfect” teeth again, so I can get a surgery to, in part, undo what was so expensively done in my childhood. I’ve considered saying hell with the whole damn thing and ignoring it, keep locking that jaw and chipping away at my front teeth, but the inevitable prospect of either looking like a hockey player after a rough game or getting dentures doesn’t sit well with me. Even my grandma doesn’t have dentures, and as a child all she had to brush her teeth with was a twig and some baking soda. Seriously. And she has ALL of her teeth. They look fine. They work, all without expensive braces

epilogue

After spewing out the previous rant, I've gotten what I like to call, "fuckinggoddamnsonofabitchshitass braces." While I’d practiced talking without showing my teeth and a closed mouth smile that wouldn’t make me look too douche baggy before the braces, it’s a whole different ballgame now that they’re on. The smiles don’t work that well when the inside of my lips get caught on the brackets. And it’s damned hard to laugh without opening your mouth or covering it with your hand in a way that looks at least somewhat natural.

And in all my worrying about braces looking dumb and awful, I forgot about how uncomfortable they are. Here I was being all superficial, sweating goofier smile full of clunky matter, failing to remember how weird it feels to have brackets jutting out of your teeth (some with hooks, all connected by wire), how they affect speech, and how much less fun they make eating. Not to mention the general soreness. Wah.

Still ,as is my last resort when self-pity and whininess takes over, I remind myself that I have all my limbs, my major organs seem to be functioning acceptably, and I have a roof over my head. Should probably stop all over dramatic with the complaining about these braces, I suppose.

Still... dammit.