Okay.   Whatever.  I am just going to throw in the towel and join the circus.   Add to the usual chaos that follows me from home to school to wherever I go, you can add to that list: Dream Crasher.  ‘Cause there is one lil’ gal in West Prince who no longer believes in the tooth fairy because of Your’s Truly.

You wouldn’t believe this story even if I swore it was true.  Which incidentally it is.

ONE MONTH AGO…a little girl came up to me on the playground and told me she had lost her tooth.  I was on duty.  I knew that I had no where safe to put the tooth.  So, being a tad bit squeamish of other people’s bloodied dental apparatuses, I asked her to carefully place the tooth in her front pocket…. to which I commanded- “and for goodness sake, don’t lose it.”

So, she lost it.

But not on the playground, as one might be prone to do.  If one was active and five years old and a little lackadaisical.  Rather.  It got lost when she tried to find a safe place to keep it (of course, isn’t that always the way?)  And where, pray tell would that SAFE place be, hmmm?   None other than…inside the jungle that is my kindergarten classroom.  Seriously, even I lose stuff in there.  It is a kaleidoscope of mayhem and activity.  I wouldn’t suggest anyone leave their keys kicking around, as I lose mine inside the confines of these four colorful walls almost daily.  But, she was on her game…trying to find a safe place for that darn tooth.  And in the time it took me to take the Duty Clipboard up to the office, grab my lunch and head back to class- the tooth got mislayed.

Oh, the horror that immediately struck me.  Because Kindergarten teachers know that part of the magic of teaching this precious age is the beauty of imagination and fairytale.   Most notable, the event that is the loss of those first baby teeth and the magic that ensues when the tooth fairy makes her first visits.

So, I was under considerable duress about that tooth. Stressed out to the MAX.  Add to which, I probably also had to use the bathroom (duty day, and all).

When I recovered my wits, I began an all-out search party for the tooth. At the end of that day, I thought the worst of things were over, and wrote the following:

…a  conversation that ensued over the afternoon (for those who might not have read that particular night’s Facebook status…)

Recess, Duty Day:
Little Girl: “I lost my tooth, Mrs. Gard!!!”
Me: “Well, let’s put it here in your coat pocket.”

Lunch:
Little Girl (on her hands and knees under the desk): “I lost my tooth, Mrs. Gard.”
Me: “You lost your tooth, and now you’ve gone and lost your tooth?

Afternoon:
Little Girl (muttering to herself): “Oh man. My mother is going to be so mad when she finds out I’ve lost my tooth. What’s she going to think? What’s she going to say…? She’ll say, ’Oh ____, you lost your tooth…where is it?’, and I am going to have to tell her, ‘I don’t know where it is, Mom’.”

End of the Day:
Me: If I find your tooth, I’ll save it and give it to you  after the long weekend, ‘kay?”
Little Girl: “Okay!!!! (then, upon deciding I might need some description so as to narrow things down, she says this) “Okay, well…it’s WHITE….and it’s a little dirty.”

No kidding.

ONE MONTH LATER…

We are on the rug.  The same little girl is minding her own P.’s and Q.’s when all of a sudden she cries out, “I found a tooth!!!!”

I immediately think to myself, “Let the ground swallow me whole,” as I know that the tooth Fairy has come and gone and left the cash.  How could she have been so careless.  And thanks alot, you little impish demon for leaving me to concoct a story on the spot about why that tooth showed up now…ONE MONTH LATER?

All manner of things are going through my head, not the least of which… “…and how dirty IS this blue rug upon which I sit my dainty buttocks each and every day… that a tooth could show up a month later and not landed it’s pearly self inside the darkened bin that is the school vacuum cleaner.”  But I digress.

Forward to today…

I meet her Father in the hall as he is dropping her of to classes, and in my complete and utter stupidity, I also COMPLETELY forget the story we had concocted (last MONTH) to tell if and when the tooth should ever be found.  It was over a month ago, people.

And in my eagerness to say something…ANYTHING, I say this, “Wasn’t it cool how we found the tooth…and one month later, nonetheless???????”

Utter.silence.   Please open up Earth and swallow me whole.

If looks could kill, you’d all be attending my wake tomorrow evening.  I guess you could say that I opened up my big mouth and the words couldn’t stop flowing.  I started back-tracking then, trying to think of another reason that tooth could possibly show up in my room.  And people, I couldn’t think of ONE GOOD REASON.  Nope.  I was blank.  And spouting suggestions at the drop of a hat.  Finally, the Father made the “cut your throat’ gesture, and I stopped talking, slinked into the classroom and checked to see if I still had a pulse.  I did, much to my own dismay.  And much, much later, when I called and asked the family if there was anything,  (and I quote) “ANYTHING I can do to fix up this faux pas” they kindly asked me to do this.

Please.don’t.say.another.thing.

I am officially muted on the subject of the Tooth Fairy.