I walked down the stairs and to the car calmly, white crunching underfoot. Buckled Evan into his seat calmly. Shut the door calmly. Dialed the phone calmly. Justin answered. Calmly. At which point I stepped out of my kid's frame of view and unleashed fifteen minutes of f-bombs and sobbing.

Six months ago our dentist said that Evan had a "tiny" cavity, and instructed us to come back in six months or so to get it fixed. Today, it took a mirror on a stick and all of fourteen seconds for her to step back from him, pull me aside and tell me that she suspects he is a werewolf. A werewolf who drinks too much Pepsi.

Then she told me what she saw in his mouth, other than half-chewed accountants.

Five large cavities so far gone that one tooth is half lost. A referral for two root canals, two stainless steel crowns and three fillings. For a boy who just turned five. Heavy sedation at best. Hospital and general anesthesia at worst. For a boy who JUST TURNED FIVE.

Two root canals. He's five. I can't even joke about it.

+++

The lady across the road dropped a can of Mountain Dew into his bag at Halloween and he pulled it back out and gave it to her and said, "Thank you nice lady, but I don't drink beer."

"It's not beer!" she replied.

"Oh. Thank you nice lady, but I don't drink wine."

Yeah I know. Move along. The point is, Evan doesn't know what pop is.

We are unfun (see exhibit A: video game meltdown). We don't buy ice cream or sweets or Sugar Crisp cereal (dammit, Justin) because if you don't have them in the house, they don't cause tantrums. It's easier that way. The kids get dilute juice, if at all, except on special occasions like Christmas or birthdays or Parliamentary prorogue parties.

Alright. So I guess I can joke about it. Mostly because I don't want you to think we're prissy and due for comeuppance. We're responsible, but not uptight. We're cautious, but not unfair. So I show you evidence of Evan's one and only slushie to prove... what, exactly? That we're neither better nor worse than any other parent? Maybe. That I can take my preschooler's two root canals in stride? That would be a lie. I can't relay the news to anyone without crying and asking to be tied up to the nearest whipping post.

Most of the time, we're beyond unfun. We're demented. We pour All-Bran onto yogurt and call it Stick Soup and bring it over to the table singing and ooohing and aahhing like it's gold-leafed croquembouche. They think it's dessert. We slap five and cackle behind our hands.

We brush no less diligently than anyone else with the exception of that family in Blue Rocks that has three sumo wrestlers living in their upstairs bathroom. We do marginally less well than they do at enforcing oral hygiene. Fair enough.

My story, the one I'm still trying to sell to myself? As a rural kid, he's never had a drop of fluoride. We're on a well and always have been. Combine that with naturally soft or cavity-prone teeth and you end up with a kid with a stainless-steel grill who can bite through electrical cable if required. In case that pesky British spy shows up trying to seduce an almost-37 year-old mother of highly dubious performance, we have an in-house villain.

From here we go to a specialist, and urgently. Then the possibility of the hospital to fix it, and then what? I know. Carrot sticks and water until he goes away to university. Clothes made of styrofoam popcorn. Payouts to witch doctors and the mafia. Jesus Christ himself nabbed in one of those Holy Ghost traps that you bait with marshmallow fluff, then tethered to my kid with velcro like an inhuman shield.

+++

This is just the beginning, isn't it?