Hey.  It’s not like I asked to get set up in the tooth business.

It happened this way: I’d just hunkered down to breakfast beside my favorite rock.  It’s a lovely thing: all crumbling and lichen-covered.  I like it because it looks a lot like me, except it has no feet.  I was taking my first delectable bite of beetle sandwich when the sun vanished.  Fabric brushed my face, and something heavy and disturbingly cushy plopped onto my back.  I said “oof”, and forced my eyes open to see a tattered skirt and a pair of high-heeled, curly-toed boots.

“Hey, Lady,” I said–and it came out a little more gruff than I intended, what with the extra weight on my spine and all–”The rock’s over there.”

She jumped up and whirled around.  The sun was at her back, so I couldn’t see much more than the droopy hat and a frazzled snarl of hair, but I’m pretty sure she was looking back and forth between me and the boulder as though trying to figure out which of us had spoken.

I cracked my mouth open so she could see it.  “You’re blocking my light.”

She bent down and peered at me.  Her nose almost touched my face.  “And a good thing, too,” she said.  Her voice was like branches snapping in the wind.  “You look hideous.”

“Yeah, well that’s about how you smell.  You should do something for your tooth rot.”

I know, I shouldn’t have said it.  She had a distinctly witchish look to her, and it’s never wise to mess with that crowd.  But I hadn’t eaten any breakfast, and I’d slept badly the night before, and then she shoved her foul-smelling mug into my face and insulted me.

She sneered.  The curl of her lip only served to exhibit the decaying teeth.  “Look who’s talking,” she snapped.  “I doubt you’ve ever used a toothbrush.”

“Don’t need one.”  I couldn’t help feeling smug.  “So what if a tooth falls out every few decades?  I’ve got plenty of spares.”  I opened my mouth to show them off, all three rows.

That was my second mistake.

“We’ll take care of that,” the witch said.  She curled her fingers around her hair and muttered in an arcane language.  The knobs on my back prickled.  A peculiar scrabbling sensation filled my mouth.  I started to ask what she was doing, but I got no farther than “Wh-” before half a dozen teeth sprayed out of my mouth.  They spattered across the grass and disintegrated.

“Hey!” I said.  Another spray of teeth hit the greenery.  My mouth was beginning to feel distinctly cavernous.

“Bon appetite,” the witch said.  She displayed her gums in a truly hideous grin, then spread her fingers and vanished in a curl of smoke.

Witches.  Huh.  I hunkered on the grass and tried to eat my sandwich.  My last few teeth crumbled on impact.  The residue coated the beetles in chalky, foul-tasting powder.       Now my day was officially ruined.

I pitched the sandwich, tramped into town, and shoved through the double doors of the dentist’s office.

The knobby gnome at the desk peered at me over his spectacles.  “What happened to you?”

“Witch,” I said.  Only it came out “Oois”.  I dropped my jaw and pointed to my gaping gums.

“Dentures, is it?  And I suppose you expect me to cut a hole for you in my busy schedule?”

He didn’t seem particularly busy.  In fact, the massive tome that lay open on his desk looked suspiciously like the latest Parry Smotter novel wrapped in onion paper.  I pushed aside a stack of yellowing magazine articles and plopped into his patient chair.

The gnome heaved a long-suffering sigh, then closed his book and rummaged on his shelves for a model that might work.  “Genuine elves’ teeth,” he pronounced.  “I’d give you ceramic, but I don’t want you to sue me again.”

I grimaced.  My first and only filling had been ceramic, and the anaphylactic shock had nearly sent me to the hospital.

The gnome measured my mouth and stretched the prosthesis to fit with a simple hocus.  He added sparkle hex and a jinx on bacteria for good measure, then stepped back and let me admire myself in his mirror.

I confess, I wasn’t thrilled.  It had flat teeth; I preferred pointed, and I like them in multiple rows.  But I decided not to be picky.  I thanked the gnome, argued with him about the bill, and went across the street to buy a new sandwich.

Halfway through the intersection, the immortal elves’ teeth crumbled to dust.

The gnome wanted twice as much for the next prosthesis.

“That’s ridiculous!” I blurted (only it sounded more like “Wat’s wiwicooif.”)

The gnome shrugged and adjusted the set of his spectacles.  “Pal, genuine calcium implants aren’t easy to come by, and this is my last set.  Now are you gonna pay or not?”

I paid.  I gripped a brand-new, shrink-wrapped beetle sandwich in my paw while he installed the thing, then gobbled it down the instant he was done.  It tasted magnificent.  My teeth fell out two minutes later.

“I think,” my dentist said as we watched the bicuspids disintegrate, “that we’re going to need more calcium.”

“Can’t I get a court order and make the witch yank her curse?”

“Sure… did you get her name and the operating number on her broom?”

I sighed and went across the street to buy a Slurpee.

And that’s how it started.  I can’t say I’m proud of the way I get my implants.  Sneaking into houses at night isn’t exactly a socially acceptable behavior, but I’m telling you, it beats yanking molars out of corpses.  I’ve spread what rumors I can to help people feel more comfortable about it.

No, it’s not false advertising.  Look it up in Websters: “A mythical being of folklore and romance usually having diminutive human form and magic powers”.  Since when does usually mean always?  And where does it say anything about wings?

So go back to sleep, punk kid.  Ignore the grubby paw rummaging under your pillow.  Be glad you got your quarter.  Good night.