Perfect Teeth

Well, well, well. Turns out my little brother's genetic superiority has been confirmed by an outside source. La-ti-da, broseph.

I would like to remind him, as well as the largely indifferent internet, that we are also the products of extensive and expensive dental and orthodontic intervention. We are not the golden children of a benevolent, cavity-free God, orbited by floss-bearing angels. I like to think of us more as the dental version of Wolverine from the X-Men-- fundamentally tampered with, painfully altered, and yet so much cooler for it.

Perhaps my little brother forgets, but there were times when our individual smiles produced winces in other people-- his when he was six years old and I had attempted on three separate occasions to knock out his two front teeth (perhaps my low success ratio can be accounted for by the profound genetic deficiencies in my eyesight, which were already manifesting themselves); mine for a good three years between grades 6 and 9 when instead of normal adult teeth, I instead grew the long, yellow burrowing teeth of a nutria from my upper gums.

But now... oh now. My teeth are pretty. Pants even says so. And functional-- did you know that my bite-ratio is in the 98th percentile? I too had a faith-affirming visit with a dentist after a criminally long hiatus, and as he poked and scraped at my gums he also praised my choice in undergraduate majors and my selection of a mate in the service. Imagine! I remember a time when Dr. Smith (our first dentist) sat next to me peering at my X-rays and just sighing over and over again, like I was the most hopelessly fucked up thing he'd ever seen. When someone with a tiny steel hook wedged between your molars finally approves of you, it's no wonder you felt you were meant to rule all mankind.

Just remember your roots, snaggletooth.