My odd green loaner phone chirped yesterday during a conference call. It made an odd, tinkling sound, like a unicorn peeing. "What's that sound?" asked one of my co-workers.
"It's my phone. I don't know how to turn it off," I replied, stabbing at buttons until it fell silent.
We returned to our conversation, and the unicorn peed again. And again. Without my contacts, I didn't recognize any of the phone numbers. I shoved the phone under a stack of papers.
I forgot about it.
Then Beloved called. "Did the school nurse try to call you?" he asked.
These are the words a mother never, ever wants to hear.
"Um? Maybe? Is everything okay? Do I need to go get her?" I asked, sweat immediately pouring from my palms.
"She's fine. She swallowed a tooth."
I checked my voicemail after ten minutes trying to figure out how to check the voicemail. Sure enough, there was the school nurse -- who said my daughter was standing right there -- telling me my girl was in tears because she'd swallowed her loose tooth during lunch and was certain she would either a) die or b) not get any money from the tooth fairy. And I didn't answer the phone.
After I finished tearing my garments and gnashing my teeth, I forced myself to stop picturing her there, tears running down her perfect cheeks, surely wondering why Mommy wasn't answering the phone when she might certainly perish from tooth ingestion. It was a visual that made my stomach turn every time it flashed past my eyes, and I realized I would get nothing done if I kept thinking about it. What's done was done, tooth was swallowed, and really, that couldn't be worse than swallowing a watermelon seed, right? It wouldn't tear her innards apart? Surely teeth have been swallowed since the dawn of time?
When she got home, I reassured her everything would be shored up with the Tooth Fairy. When she didn't believe me, I IMed my co-workers. "I think the Tooth Fairy takes vouchers," one wrote back. The other assured me that the Tooth Fairy had come for three of her six kids who had swallowed teeth. Thank God for third-party confirmation, because my girl didn't believe me until I showed her the glowing screen. She believes anything she reads on the Internet.
She wrote a very nice note to the Tooth Fairy.
Dear Tooth Fairy,
I swallowed my tooth. Can I still have money?
From, (redacted)
This morning, when she woke to find the Tooth Fairy pillow containing not one but two gold dollar coins, she sat down at her desk and wrote several notes of joy.
The luck!
So yes, it's confirmed. The Tooth Fairy does indeed take vouchers.
