No Longer a Metal Mouth

I got my braces off today! This is a huge thrill for me. Doc Wilson put them on in October of 2003 so they had been on my teeth for about 20 months. I discovered that this was plenty of time to break off several brackets, develop cheek callouses from the constant poking, and grow accustomed to that feeling of having a good portion of the hardware aisle at Lowes in my mouth.
I broke brackets in interesting ways. In fact, I almost set a Wilson Orthodontics record when I went in one Monday to have three brackets repaired after a Sunday afternoon rib-fest featuring my dad's special dry rub. Those ribs were just too good to eat carefully. I broke off two brackets on the top in the front, and one on the bottom on the side. Everyone at the office just laughed at me and glued them all back on. I'm sure they put a black mark in my file for bad behavior. Let's see, other ways that I ruined brackets:

Buffalo wings -- Because I stuck most of the wing into the side of my mouth and gnawed the meat off that way. I hit bone on one ocassion. I guess I don't do well with bones.

Nuts -- Which they tell you not to eat, but I thought I could eat a cashew carefully.

Those little low fat garlic crisps from the Tom Thumb deli -- They broke up in crazy shapes and a control freak just had no control over that.

I think that's it. I avoided caramels and popcorn while I had braces, but I tend to avoid those on a daily basis anyway. I overdosed on popcorn and Pepsi Free once when I was eleven and it made me sick and I haven't been a big popcorn fan since. And the caramels...if I'm going to do sugar I guess I would rather eat chocolate.

Now that the metal is gone, my teeth feel slick and slimy and fantastic. Doc Wilson showed me the before and after pictures, and I hadn't realized how deformed my smile had been prior to braces. The right side of my face used to form a long trench-like dimple katywampus near my chin each time I smiled, I suppose because the teeth on that side of my face were in the wrong places and that caused the skin to stretch and crease in ways that only the skin inside your elbow should. But braces fixed this abnormality and now my smile is much hotter. I wouldn't say hot yet. Baby steps. I'm just happy I don't have to have the metal airbrushed out of photos anymore. Now if I could just do something about that huge forehead.