Thursday, 29 September 2011

• God Punished Me For Scheduling Two Dates In One Day

  

  I believe that a smile is one of the most important features on a person.  It is definitely one of the very first things I look at on a guy, after his eyes.  If you have kind eyes and a genuine smile, I don’t care what color your irises are or how perfect your teeth look – all I care about is how you look at me and the cute way your face crinkles up when you grin or laugh.

  For myself, on the other hand, I have a very different opinion.  I whiten my teeth constantly.  I am all about my smile.  I always like to think of a line from a song that my mom and I love to sing in the car called Lion Eyes by The Eagles.  The lead singer says “City girls just seem to find out early…how to open doors with just a smile.”  And, hey, if that smile isn’t in tip-top shape, you could expect those same doors to slam in your face, my friend.

  I begged my dentist for years to professionally whiten my teeth, and he always told me the same thing, “You’re not old enough, Jennifer.  Come work for me one day and then we’ll talk.”

  And I did.  When I was 15 years old, I worked as a dental hygienist for 8 months.  I cannot even begin to tell you the grotesque things I saw. The amount of yellow, rotting, and disgusting teeth I witnessed and had to be in close contact with literally sickened me.  It also made me paranoid.

  Oh my God, I never want my teeth to look like that, I’d think, as I peered into these frightening mouths with a suction vacuum and a mask on.  My obsession with constant teeth brushing and evaluating and scrutinizing just threw me into even more of a teeth-hating whirlwind.

  Because of my fixation and hatred of my teeth, I didn’t allow them to be seen when I smiled all throughout high school.  Even my professional senior prom picture is a shot of me smirking. 

  Finally, when I turned 18, and my dentist deemed my teeth stable enough to bleach, I got them professionally whitened.  It was the very beginning of teeth whitening, and took about three hours to complete.  It was the most agonizing experience of my life – both during and post-bleaching.

  I was literally up for 14 hours sobbing.  It felt like every single one of my teeth had ice cream both in front of and behind them.  The pain was excruciating and…totally worth it.

  The problem was that it was like a drug for me.  I was hooked.  I spent hundreds of dollars on specially-made bleach gel, trays molded specifically to the shape of my teeth, online products such as GoSmile, etc.  Now I have really white teeth, but when it’s cold outside and the wind blows, I am super sensitive to it.  Same goes with ice water and ice cream and all kinds of other goodies. 

  I think I must have cut my tooth enamel in half by torturing my poor teeth by trying to turn them into “movie-star-white” teeth, as I used to tell my dentist.  Meanwhile, all movie stars have porcelain veneers, as he used to tell me. 

  Anyway, because there are simply not enough days in the week, I was once forced to book two dates in one day.  I didn’t get all crazy with it – scheduling one at 6PM and one at 8PM – I simply made one coffee date and one dinner/dancing date.

  Feeling absolutely full of myself, I happily chatted with the gorgeous guy sitting across from me (the gorgeous coffee guy, that is).  As I sat there, chewing my gum and listening to him talk about his family, friends, job, et cetera, something terrible happened.  As I chomped down on my Dentyne Ice, my two front teeth came crashing down on my bottom front teeth, causing a sudden and shocking pain to hit the inside of my mouth.

  Just then, I felt something sharp and hard on my tongue, as I frantically moved it around my mouth.  Yes, my friends and frenemies, I, Jennifer…chipped…my…front…tooth.  On a date.  On my first of two dates.

  I sat there, fighting back tears and panic, trying very hard not to jump out of my seat screaming about my now-deformed smile.  Instead, I sat quietly, nodding as I had been, gingerly taking the gum – and tooth particle – out of my mouth and wrapping it up in a napkin.

  I then took out my lip-gloss and pocket-mirror, and casually snuck a peak at my tooth.  Luckily, the chip felt like it was hillbilly-status, yet looked microscopic.  Of course, that didn’t stop me from excusing myself to the restroom and making an emergency dentist appointment for the following week to bond my tooth.

  I barely smiled the entire rest of the date.  I was miserable for hours, even after my parents looked at it (my mom with her reading glasses on and everything) and insisted they couldn’t even see the chip.  To make up for it, though, I blew my hair out and wore a crazy hot dress for my second date.  Neither guy even noticed. Chip shmip.

   

  For more exciting Jen tales, check out my site, www.JenAndMen.com :)

   

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