How I spent USSR

plotting how to be the ultimate in cool

Flashback. pamie’s brain. Sixth Grade.
Uninterrupted Sustained Silent Reading time.

How cool would it be to have a retainer? Oh, man, if I just had a retainer, I would be the coolest. See here, how I’ve bent this paper clip all out of shape and shaped it into the semi-circle that is my upper teeth ridge? And when I put it in my mouth– instant retainer. I get to make those little sucking noises like I’m just producing so much saliva like all the other cool retainer girls. And it’s kinda poking me way back in my cheeks, and even drawing a little blood, but that’s cool because braces hurt and retainers hurt and now I understand the pain that the retainer people have. I can complain about my own little piece of metal and plastic that I have to take care of and I have to wear so that one day I have perfect, perfect teeth. Oh, and if it keeps hurting, I’ll get to carry around that little box that says “wax” and put wax on it to help the inside of my mouth heal.

Hey, if I take this pack of gum and chew it all up, I can shape it into a mouthpiece, and then I can attatch it to the sides of the paper clip, and then I have a more realistic retainer. Then I have the inside of the retainer, that when you take it out of your mouth you see all the little veins and interesting parts of the deep inside of the roof of your mouth that you usually can’t see unless you tilt your head way back and look in the mirror with your tongue stuck out. But whenever I try and do that the mirror fogs up with my breath and I can’t see it so good.

Now, if I can just find some tiny rubber bands I could make this retainer into braces. I’ll borrow two from Wendy.

Oh. She said she couldn’t give me any. She’s such a liar, I saw that big bag she had. She just thinks she’s so cool because she’s got green ones and orange ones and she can change the colors of her rubber bands. I’ll ask Daniel, since he just shoots them across the room all the time, anyway… I should ask him how he does that…

Great. Daniel gave me six, in case I lost any. I could make two of the retainers and put them on the top and bottom of my mouth and then I could put…

Oh! The elastic bands just fit in the spaces between my teeth! That’s so perfect! I can squish the rubber band just in between my– oh. I dropped it. Where did it go? Oh, there it is, under my desk. Okay. Ih. Kinda dirty. I’ll rub it off on my jeans. Okay. Let’s try again. Shove the band between my sharp tooth and my sorta front tooth. There. Okay, now on the other side. Rahh! Rahhh! I look like a monster. Rahhh!

Okay. Now here’s the tricky part. I have to get them to fit in between the spaces of my bottom teeth, which are really in there tight. Maybe I should start at the bottom and then do the top because it’s easier. Oh, there’s all sorts of teeth marks on my fingers. And drool. I’m already making the sucking spit noises, thisissocool.

Okay, so now the elastics are in. If I only open my mouth half-way when I talk, it looks like I’m wearing braces with bands. Oh, put in the paper clips. Oh, man, this is so neat. I just gave myself braces! Now if only they really straightened my teeth out.

It’s really hard to close my mouth. The paper clips aren’t really bent too smooth, so my mouth is poking out in all sorts of strange places, and it looks like I’m wearing some sort of mouth guard…. I’ll just say it’s my night guard and I forgot my real retainer at home. My retainer that I wear with bands… this gum is making the roof of my mouth itch.

Oh, man, there’s Kim. She’s got the coolest mouthpiece I’ve ever seen. It’s really big, and when she wears it, it changes the way she talks. It’s all full of plastic and wires, and she says it’s because she doesn’t have a roof on her mouth. She calls it a frankel. How cool is that name? But I could never recreate that mouthpiece, it’s way too complicated. It’s got all those wires and such.

And I swiped the glasses off my sister’s Cabbage Patch Doll and they are just small enough to make me look really cool and smart. You can hardly tell they have no glass in them! They are this neat woody brown. Ow. Kinda hurts my head right above my ears… but beauty is pain, right?

And I think girls that talk with lisps sound more interesting than girls who talk like me. You just get pulled in to watching the little pink tip of their tongue resting on their teeth when they are talking to you, and when they get really excited about something, then you have to listen closely to understand them. They command attention. They get everyone to listen. That is so cool.

Oh, and man, if I could only break my foot so I had to have crutches. Then your best friend gets to walk around the halls with you when everyone else has to be in class, and you get to wear a backpack to carry all of your stuff… well, except for your Trapper Keeper, which doesn’t fit in the bag, so your friend has to carry that, which is why you get to have your friend with you. And you don’t have to wear a shoe. You just get to be all comfy in your sock. Okay, I guess I just want a sprained ankle, because then my foot will still look all dainty like when the girls on the dance team fall and hurt themselves.

Or, if I really hurt myself I would get to roll around in a wheelchair and not have to have a desk, because my chair would be my desk, and I could pop a wheelie whenever I got a right answer and everyone would cheer like they do on the TV Movies.

I can’t believe the teacher made me give her my braces/retainer. She threw it away, saying it was a waste of supplies. I can’t believe she did that. I worked hard on it. Now I have to start over, and I don’t have enough rubber bands.

I wish I could get braces, I really do.

 

“You wanted to be one of the disadvantaged kids? Every day, I understand why you are the way you are, just a little bit more.”

 

 

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