The Fairy God Mother of Petroleum
September 28, 2004

Hey. How's is going? Cool. Yeah, I've been okay. Crazy weather we've been having, eh? I was going to head back down to Florida this last weekend but Nature was all like:

And I was all like: I'm totally not going down there right now.

So what's new with you? Yeah, nothing new here really. My front tooth fell out. Yeah, tonight. I know, it totally sucks. I was just waiting for the pizza to warm up and I felt it slip. It freaked me out. Yeah, it was totally weird. No, it's a crown. Yeah.

Well, when I was little some kids were fighting and one of them threw the other, who then went falling back into me. He needed stitches in his head and I ended up at the dentist. They told us that my tooth would probably die, and it did, so this is like the second crown I've had on it already.

Yeah, I have to go back to Florida now and get it fixed. The sucky thing is that when I called my dentist tonight, he told me I could just put some denture cream or temporary cement in the crown to hold it until my appointment. So I go to the drugstore, right? I buy twenty dollars of cream, and cleaner, and cement, and mouthwash, and when I'm driving home the tooth falls all the way out. So obviously the first thing I do is look at it when I get to a traffic light, and guess what? The post is completely broken. I mean, the crown didn't slide off the post, half the post is still up in the stupid crown.

So now I'm thinking, I have to go back to the drugstore and get some Vaseline instead of all this other crap, because the dentist told me I could use that as a moisture seal or something. I get in there, I can't find it. So I go up to this guy and ask him, with my hand over my mouth so he can't see the gapping hag-teeth, "Where is the W-aseline?" Oh my god, you should have been there. I sounded like I was learning to talk for the first time.

The guy, of course, has no idea what I = said and asks me to repeat it again. So I raise my hand back up to my face and say, much louder, "Where is the Waseline?" That causes some other guy in the same isle to turn and look with some kind of embarrassed-horror. Somewhere in the back of his head, I know he was wondering if he should leave and come back later.

So, I'm starting to panic. I stare the customer down to preserve my last shred of dignity and the employee says, "I'm sorry, let's go ask the Pharmacist." Like, I would rather die than to talk to another person, and so I say "Waseline," one more time, very slowly -- stunned that one front tooth can turn me into a mute -- and he finally shows me where it is.

As I'm driving home, I realize, I'm going to have to tell this whole story to my mom, who is staying with me here, and I just can't do with my hand over my mouth. So, I call her on the phone and tell her that my post is broken and that I'm going to have to get back to Florida as soon as possible -- even if there is a gas shortage along the way.

She mentions that we don't have the big five gallon gas container with us and so I decide to go to Wal-Mart to buy another one. They're out, of course. But they did have little one gallon containers, and so I bought three of those. You know, why not? On the way back, I stop to fill them up. I get the first one filled up, I put the lid on, and as I pick it up, gasoline starts leaking everywhere.

The damn thing is supposed to be vent-less! Spilling isn't supposed to happen. So I put the can down while the rain continues to blow all over me from the tropical storm, and something is also wrong with the roof at the gas station so runoff is basically pelting me constantly like laughter. Evil laughter. The evil laugher of a cruel god.

Yeah, I know. So anyway, I unscrew the lid of container and I get gas all over my hands. All the while I'm running my tongue against the new hole in my mouth and feeling more and more dumb. I'm thinking to myself, "I'm an idiot and if some guy comes over here and offer to help, and I have to talk to him all snaggle-toothed, I'm just going to die. So, I hurriedly take the lid off an empty container, to make sure I didn't put the inverted spout-thing in wrong, make sure everything is extra tight on the full container, and the thing starts spilling again anyway.

The rain is still soaking me, now hair is starting to fall into my face and I can't pull it back with my gasoline-soaked hands, and there is no way that I'm going to put that gas can in the car now either, so I decide to just leave it. Someone will come along with a truck, see a nice new and full gas can, and take it. That's right: To someone, I'll be the unseen, snaggle-toothed, Fairy God Mother of Petroleum.

After I realize I can't get back to the car with hands dripping with gas, I run into the bathroom and start washing them like Lady Macbeth. No amount of soap seems to help, of course. The smell of gasoline is fundamental, like sin; it can't just be rinsed away by mere water. The stuff gets under your skin and becomes a part of you; it begins to define you. Oh beware all ye who would so foolishly taint themselves.

So anyway, I get home, nod silently to my mom as I come in the door, immediately grab a paper towel to help hide my mouth as I talk, and then tell her the whole story.

"Oh, you poor thing," she says. "I can't believe everything has to happy to you all at once like this." And then, quite unexpectedly, she lets out small laugh. I can tell she's about to bust-out, but she's trying to hold it in. My eyes get wide, and I'm thinking that's not really nice; and just then, she starts laughing, uncontrollably, and I've never seen her laugh this hard, and so I start to laugh too, which allows her to finally see my gapping hole, and that makes her laugh even harder.

What? No, you definitely can't see it. I have to go.