The Wall Street Journal and the Tooth Fairy

Photo courtesy of East Tennessee Children's Hospital http://www.etch.com/AskDocTeeth.cfm

The Wall Street Journal ran a story on the tooth fairy today. This is why I love the WSJ. It is not just the neat columns and rows, or the little etched portraits that replace photos- this is where I first read about the Chinese stopping traffic at the evening rush hour so the royal ducks could travel across town to their favorite swimming hole. (You have to love a country THAT crowded that still makes room for ducklings.) I imagine the family comprised of two busy professionals with a child who are RELIEVED to know that someone has done the research and come back with a national average of $2.34 for each tooth lost. I can just see them breathing a sigh of relief with this piece of information as a benchmark. No one wants to be seen as over-indulgent or (worse) to hear from a teary toddler returning from pre-school "But Emily gets $3.49 a tooth". Its tantamount to child abuse and no child should ever bear that shame. Anyone reading this and NOT racing to pick up the WSJ should note that if it is a first tooth (and the moon is in Virgo and the tooth has fallen out between noon and...oh hell I need an actuary to figure this out)a first tooth nets about double. The new dollar amounts are great for the tooth fairy who gave quarters when I was a kid. It must've been hell to carry around all that loose change. Paper money is much more portable and easier on the wings.

For any parent NOT in the know (perhaps having been raised by wolves who have no such customs or pillows for that matter) The procedure is as follows:

When a tooth falls out, leave it under your pillow when you go to sleep. During the night, the Tooth Fairy will visit your room, take the tooth and leave a small amount of hard cash.

Simple enough. But wait, there's more- I found out some very interesting facts about the tooth fairy

She is able to detect the loss of a tooth. Some form of radiation or exotic particle is emitted on the loss of a tooth. We shall call these "Toothions". The Tooth Fairy is able to detect this radiation (or particle stream). To investigate this properly would require placing a child in a large particle detector and removing it's teeth, measuring any emitted radiation/particles. Nuclear Physics research centres, such as CERN should be contacted about this sort of experiment (also, the parents should be notified before altering the child in any substantial way).

The original tooth fairy was not always a tooth fairy. In fact, he spent the first 300 years of his career not giving gifts to kids, but breaking into people's houses and stealing teeth they already had in their mouths, and making jewelry from them that he sold at a booth on the Boardwalk in Atlantic City. *

Few people realize that in the United States, tooth fairies are appointed by state legislatures, one per congressional district*.

The Tooth Fairy International Research Center concluded that the best entryway for today's homes is the dryer vent, and that is how tooth fairies usually enter homes, although a few old-timers still bore 38-inch diameter holes through the roof using battery-powered 12-mm portable jig saws. It is said that you can identify a tooth fairy by the lint on his mustache*. (please note that legend is NOT specific about tooth fairy gender- or even species- in some countries the tooth fairy is a winged mouse- had I known this as a child I would have hidden my teeth under my sister's pillow- It would have been worth the loss of income to watch her jump)

In Mongolia the baby tooth is given to a young dog.The dog is respected and is considered a guardian angel there. The baby tooth is put in the meat fat and it is fed to the dog. When the guardian angel eats it, it is said, that a strong tooth will grow. (heck my dog would have eaten the meat and spat out the tooth. This may explain my record breaking 7 cavities on my 1st dentist visit. The dentist inquired whether I ate sugar by the bag- I did.)

Also, assuming that you do indeed stay awake all night, and actually do see the Tooth Fairy herself, it becomes necessary to address these issues:

* Could it have been a dream or an hallucination brought on by lack of sleep, and the expectation of seeing such an entity?
* Do you have a history of mental illness?
* Are you taking strong medicinal/recreational drugs?
* Have you ruled the possibility of fraud/hoaxing by third parties? (Is Grandma in the house? Never trust anyone in a
housecoat)

It's true. I looked it up.

I also found the following at http://www.abarnett.demon.co.uk/atheism/tooth.html

Having studied the above evidence and arguments for and against the existence of the Tooth Fairy, the critical thinker should now be in a position to apply Occam's Razor and select the simpler explanation. It's the parents doing it. It's not really a fairy.

Nahhhhhh.

:) X

*tooth fairy facts from www.mfinley.com