Let there be teeth

I cannot smile

I carry with me a deformity that I have accommodated for long, but it is quite concerning still. My upper front teeth that I lost to a childhood prank and for every dental activity performed has left me with some regret at ever considering some remediation, though, something needs to be done.

Blog: Childhood: Defanged by Misadventure

Now, Ian Paisley, later Baron Bannside was a Northern Ireland politician and more notably a firebrand preacher, of the fire and brimstone kind, fundamentalist to the core and extremist was as comfortable for any congregant who felt they needed to be shaken to core about the expectations of the afterlife.

The matter of teeth

In one instance, the preacher railed from the pulpit with fiery vehemence, “Ye are all bound for damnation.” He said, and continued with, “There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” We all probably can find all sorts of opportunities to cry and weep, it is a composite of our nature.

However, we cannot all keep our teeth, some are lost to decay and caries, others lost to misadventure or even worse. There are some that have no teeth at all and lo, even in the sphere of faith healing, the lame walk, the blind sees, the mute speak, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, but I cannot recall any instance of a miracle of dental restoration. Surely, that is just as important to wholesome living.

A miracle for hell

There, in a pew sat an old woman who asked what might happen to those who have no teeth, for, and I agree, the “weeping and gnashing of teeth” experience will be incomplete without the teeth, leading some to question the irrefutability of Scripture. To which the Reverend Ian Paisley responded, “Teeth will be provided.” And there we have it, in damnation, we can expect one last miracle, 32 white gnashers horsing around on the red hills of healthy gums, ready to clatter in the wailing abandonment of perdition.

I guess this suggests that even in hell, the human experience will be full, whole, and complete. What a prospect, what a scary prospect, indeed.

Looking like I do, happily

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Of weight and form

For a man my age, I am pretty much comfortable in my own skin, in my identity and generally in the way I express myself. Yet, I do suffer from middle-aged angst about my body, I obsess about my weight even though my doctors would prefer I maintain the weight I have considering I lost 25% of my body weight when I had cancer 10 years ago.

I probably would be happier with myself if I lost a few kilograms. That, along with middle-aged spread that can plague you if you are not committed to an exercise and fitness regime. A gym membership languishes with monthly extractions from my account, the gym in my apartment block has not seen a visit in aeons and the swimming pool that gives my the yearning to learn to swim, leaves me with the best of intentions, good intentions, but intentions do not keep you fit.

FaceApp on WhatsApp

Then with the fantasy of desire and probably the means to acquire, I was visited with a remodelling of my face, a full beard that is attractive to someone but a complete irritation to me. Five days after shaving, every pore of the nascent beard growth is itching stimulus receptacle asking a tug, a pull or a scratch, it is only assuaged with a shave, a good clean close shave with 2 days for my skin to heal.

What I could be in the imagination of FaceApp and none look the least attractive to me.

It drives me to distraction; I would rather I had no beard as I did not even start growing one that responded to shaving until I was in my 30s.

There is much else I could change, male pattern baldness with a dusty brown Caucasian wig as bangs. I know of no other male in my immediate family that has this condition, but when I saw that I was losing the hair, I did not agonise about it, I took it all off especially after watching a film of people with a snake oil remedy for hair growth inject people with hair loss issues with a serum that grew their hair at unbelievable speeds, until it became clear that they were being used as hosts for aggressive follicular snakes. [Body Bags – Wikipedia]

All the makeup MAC can make

Maybe there are things I would have liked to change, my teeth, the front two which I lost in a childhood wheelbarrow game and the stories that follow. It is somewhat unsightly, but I am not that self-conscious about these things, I have faced more life-threatening situations than the absence of a complete set of fitted mandibles and maxilla. I could tamper with my nose and fiddle with my ears, but I would no more be who I am after all that.

Blog - Childhood: Defanged by Misadventure

Then I think of the girl with her boyfriend in the video of TLC’s Unpretty, he was not happy with her as a person, he wanted her to have bigger boobs and persuaded her enough to feel so inadequate that she contemplated cosmetic surgery until it dawned on her that she was just good as she was.

I don’t feel unpretty

The battles we fight in our heads where people who are naturally beautiful get to the point of thinking something is so wrong with their looks that after rounds of plastic surgery, they become grotesque caricatures of their former selves and bizarrely contented with the butchery of their bodies.

I pray I never have to suffer that level of psychological discontent leading to the physiological hacking away of my natural features. I have lost a few teeth, had a crown or two inserted, but for everything else, I am blessed with much more than I have ever been grateful for. No, I don’t feel unpretty, I love my body, I could do much more to be fitter.

Childhood: Defanged by Misadventure

Taking a poor call

That evening my mobile phone rang and no caller identification was shown apart from the nondescript Unknown. The time of the day allowed for me to take the call but I heard nothing from the other end as my patience began to wane with each subsequent “Hello”

In typical Akin fashion, I rang off the call with, “If you are not ready to talk, I am breaking off this call.” A few minutes later, the phone rang again and I noticed that the indicator bars for signal strength are low signifying a possible poor connection, I was prepared to be a bit more patient and I finally got to hear who was calling and I rang off promising to call back when I return home in about 30 minutes.

My friend was curious about the calls and I said, she is the reason my dentition is the way it is. Without the backstory he immediately jumped to the conclusion that a girl had knocked out my teeth with all the connotations it entails.

I failed to get a word in edgeways as to the how and the why, I knew he would eventually find out and I should expect a call the moment he reads this blog.

The wheelbarrow tyre fell off

It was an evening of horseplay and pranks as we played in the corridor that linked our bedroom to the bathroom, a door to the left lead to the dining room and further up to the right was the door to my father’s bedroom, at the end of the corridor; straight ahead was the toilet, to the right was the door to my auntie’s bedroom and to the left was the bathroom.

We started at the end closest to our bedroom, my hands on the floor, she lifted up my legs in was to be a wheelbarrow walk, I had probably just moved my hands like leg strides twice when my arms appeared to give maybe because I was not keeping up with the speed of being pushed.

So, I fell forward, my front teeth hitting the floor and the damage was two pieces of enamel that could no more be put together again like a Humpty-Dumpty mishap. It was painful, I cried but there was nothing that could be done to rectify the situation.

Had this happened 6 months before, I probably would have had the luxury of a shark, my milk teeth would have been shed for the permanent ones, I had no such luck and that was the beginning of my disfigurement.

Marked for life

Six months after the accident, I was in such great pain that I had to visit the dentist. In the 70s the drills were very much like spinning pneumatic hammers, I was marked for life as the pulp was replaced with cement fillings and they took on a light marroonish colour.

That was the way I looked and I should have let it be until I was cajoled into doing some major work on them when I got to England, the contraption lasted about 8 years and since then it has been a complete mess that would require major reconstructive surgery.

It really does not bother me even though it could be rather unsightly, but in the scheme of things between Hollywood Teeth and dealing with cancer, I know where my priorities are; I was just defanged by misadventure.