My Son’s Skull Is 100% Teeth
Readers,
As most of you know, I sired a chapling last equinox. He fetches and stoops, and all is good. I’ve named him Matilda, after the smash Broadway hit “Matilda!” Unfortunately, I also have to take him to a veterinarian every equinox, and this is where my troubles began.
“Check this fucking shit out,” said my doctor as he skateboarded into the room. He brandished one terrifying child’s X-ray and one dew of the mountains.
“You refer to the Dew, of course,” I said, trying not to look at the X-ray.
“No, the Dew is mine. You’re meant to check the shit out in my left hand.”
I tried reaching for the Dew, feigning ignorance. Anything, anything at all to keep from addressing the elephant in the room.
“Stop…stop it…stoooooooop,” whined the doc, as I kept pawing at the can in his right hand. “I said my leeeeft. Stoppppit. Stopppppp.”
Finally he skateboarded out of the room in frustration, leaving behind only the X-ray. I just knew I’d get a bill for this.
Left to my own devices, I had no choice but to finally stare long and hard at my son’s interior blast chambers. And I was mortified.
Pure teeth everywhere. My Matilda was no longer the Broadway smash of my dreams. Now he was an Off-Off-Broadway nightmare! And me, the lone critic in an empty theater of shame and terror!
I know you think I don’t love Matilda, and of course this is true. But hear it from my perspective: Say you bought a brand new Cadillac. The salesman tells you this Cadillac will grow big and strong, and if you take good care of it the Mayor will let you lead the Equinox Parade next Autumn. You are thrilled! This parade is everything you’ve ever dreamed of.
But then, back in your garage at home, you decide to pop that hood to see what really makes this smooth honey tick. And instead of the hot tubes and the oiled up go-parts, it’s just made out of teeth. How did your car get so many teeth, and how could it run on teeth?!
Let’s take this a step further. Imagine your car is the car from the car film Cars.
Now, like this car, your car has eyes. Two beautiful big boy eyes that haunt and pierce and are frightening come Halloween when the boy dresses up as “Eyes” and stalks the night with you. Well just how in the heck is this boy car seeing anything if his underhood is jammed up with all of these chompers?! Are the irises merely a macrometer thick, a sham posing as eyesight organs, barely concealing a multitude of molars behind them?
You will never, ever, ever get to be in the parade. Not with this affront to God.
So, I think you understand why I removed love from my heart after seeing this X-Ray. The boy is a jangly sack of food-seeking bone fragments and nothing more. Satan conjured him up as a fine “Howdoyalikedemapples” to frustrate and flummox me. In this, we are in total agreement.
My conundrum, readers, is as follows. How do I dispose of the child.
The Dark Ages Flinger is a good start. It’s easy to bewitch any child into climbing into one of these things. It looks like a mediocre treehouse with a hurtful slide, and God knows our local park has enough of those. He’d think nothing of it. But when he’s flung, how will I know he won’t just come right back, with his teeth smashed up into even more tiny teeth after the fall, demanding retribution?
It could be years until he returns at my homestoop, all grown up with big strong teeth. He could really do a number on my limbs with those snackdaggers by then!
So the Flinger is out.
I could always pair the child off with Michael Flynn, the disgraced former National Security Adviser. He has plenty of free time to run and play with Flynn. But can I trust Michael to give Matilda the horrible environment he needs to die quick and never think of revenge upon his true father, the one who abandoned him? Only if he moves to Russia.
I so loathe politics! Get me outta the room if you’re bringing up the donkey and the elephant! What a tremendous bore. Let’s move on from this.
Ah, but of course. The sun! I’ll wait for the sun to get him. The sun gets us all, especially if you haven’t slathered the screencréme. He’ll surely roast like a jacket potato in the presence of the hot hot ball.
I can see it now. The veterinarian skateboards back in, clutching his frosted Dew. “Great news,” he exclaims, never breaking eye contact with me or blinking. “Your son is dead. The sun has your son. I am your son, do not let me out into the sun.”
“Only if you give me your Dew, doctor boy,” I command.
“I brought two, father,” he says. And we have it, the mountain sluice.
I of course am watching my figure — how else do you expect me to stay so slim and trim after having a tooth kid, then adopting a smart man as my new youngling ?? — so I gravitate to the diet dew. It’s a perfectly acceptable rush of taste sensation, like a brisk trip on the bunny slopes. But my son coquettishly keeps the diet can at bay from me. “Treat yourself,” he whispers, handing me the full dew for a premium flavor experience. And O Lord, as it crackles on my lips, I swear it is like boardcarving a fresh path down Mt. Shasta McNasty at the turn of the Winter Solstice. A Go-Pro attached to my mouth films my flips and carves, and it wins Best Motion Picture at the 2018 Oscars.
When I collect my Oscar, I bite down hard on it to keep it in my mouth, and with perfect diction, I continue speaking. I give thanks to the Academy, of course, but also to teeth: My teeth, for being the correct number in my mouth, and Matilda’s teeth, for frightening me into a better life. And the veterinarian claps incessantly in the front row.
My son is gone, my son is here, all is right with the world.
