I love it when people smile. Tentative mouth corner upturns, broad grins, sarcastic smirks – I love ‘em all. Smiles tell thousands of stories and can hold tens of thousands of secrets. I know people who have smiles that transform their entire being, and one of my favorite things to do is to make them smile. It makes me happy. It makes them happy. Win-win.
I like to smile, but I have sticky teeth. I’m pretty sure I inherited them from my Grandma Marilynn. Pre-denture Grandma Marilynn had a toothy mega-watt grin that she shared generously and her two front teeth turned into each other and overlapped slightly. Right after she died, I was looking at fabulous old photos of my grandma and grandpa – the ones that are black and white and capture them during a time when their lives were full of things that had nothing to do with any of us yet. My mom said, ‘I think my mom always wished she had gotten her teeth fixed.” I was appalled. “What do you mean? Her smile makes her whole face light up. I love her teeth!”
I looked past my mom where Pat sat with an expression on his face (more of a smirk than a smile) that read, “I’ll remember that the next time you bitch about your teeth.” But he didn’t say this out loud, because he knows better. Pat is very wise, and he’s also pragmatic.
As I mentioned, my teeth are sticky. Here are a few examples. Heidi, whenever we eat together, usually ends up saying “You have a little something” as soon as we’re through eating. Come to think of it, she really doesn’t say that anymore – she just opens her purse and hands me her mirror compact with an expression that reads “Get after it – you’re grossing me out.”
At work one time, I was talking to the handsome and hip father of one of Pat's linemen about the previous Friday’s game. It was a great conversation – I was throwing down the football lingo like a champ – punctuated by lots of smiling (I also smile broadly when I’m nervous, and I’m not a huge football expert, and what with the handsome and hip thing.) I stopped in the bathroom before going back to my office and discovered a not-so-small piece of broccoli hanging right under the gum line between my two front teeth. Lovely.
Lipstick on teeth? Too many stories to tell. All I’m going to say about that is if you see someone with lipstick on their teeth – whether you know them or not – tell them. They will appreciate it, I promise you.
I started carrying floss picks in my purse until I kept finding them amid the hair, paperclips, change and random pieces of Trident on the rare occasions when I clean out my purse. I’m not beneath trying to fish out whatever is between my teeth with an earring wire if I get desperate.
I said that smiles tell a thousand stories – mine tell a few more, particularly if you’re interested in what I have had to eat in the last hour or so.
My teeth were never bad enough to fix. My brother has the same teeth, but he also had an overbite that could have eaten corn through a picket fence. He got the orthodontics. His smile is gorgeous. I try to get him to smile every chance I can. He’s an accountant, so he could use a few extra smiles.
Hey, can’t we all?
So I’m ok with continuing my self-appointed smiling ministry. And if you happen to get a little something extra in the process, feel free to just let me know.
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