Zen 20

Dear The Tooth Fairy,

How have you been? It's been, what...sixteen, seventeen years since you've been to visit? I was just thinking about you one morning last week because I found some loose change under my pillow. At first I thought maybe I'd lost a tooth in my sleep, but they were all still in my mouth...thank goodness. Then I thought maybe I was ABOUT to lose a tooth and you just jumped the gun on the ritual "tooth for coins" exchange we established years ago. I finally realized it was just a quarter and a dime that had fallen out of a pair of jeans I'd taken off and thrown on my bed the night before.

Now that I think about it, you've got a hard gig, The Tooth Fairy. How did you get into your line of work, anyway? Maybe you were too small and flighty to be a dentist or dental hygeinist and now you're working the graveyard shift snatching sugar-rotten teeth from under the noggins of slumbering children. AND you have to pay them!

I was wondering, actually...has the price gone up? For teeth, I mean... because when I was losing my teeth, I think the going rate was twenty five cents per tooth. But with inflation and all, I bet it's somewhere up around fifty or sixty cents by now. I'm just wondering because if times get tight, I'd like to have something to fall back on. Also, I have other things you might be interested in purchasing. I trim my fingernails about once a week, and my toenails once a month (I think they grow slower) and I was thinking each set might go for a dime each (one cent per trimmed nail) which would be an extra fifty cents in my pocket per month...again, only if you're interested...I don't know if there's much of a market for toenails these days.

Or, if you're only in the business for pre-used dental items, The Tooth Fairy, maybe you're part of a networking group of other types of fairies who make under-the pillow transactions....like, is there a The Junk Mail Fairy, or a The Holey Sock Fairy? Because I have lots of those things. I did try putting some chocolate under my pillow for you last night, as a thank you gift for all the loose change over the years....but it was still there (and a little melted into my sheets) when I woke up in the morning. I thought a little more about it and I guess it was always my parents who let you know there was something waiting for you under my pillow at night. Maybe I'll call my mom and see how she used to get in contact with you.

Which reminds me...I don't really know how to address this letter...so I guess I'll send it up to the North Pole. There are a lot of letters headed up that way this time of year. I'm hoping Santa's mail room will be able to forward this to you. I bet they get a lot of mail for various modern day mythological icons....I've been trying to get in contact with the boogey man too.

In any case, feel free to stop by any time you're in the neighborhood. Don't be a stranger!

Laura Jane McGranaghan