Help Wanted: Family Seeks Live-In Orthodontist. Must Love Cats, Dogs, Turtles, Fish, Birds, Ear Mites, and Jooooo-vee-nile Fart Jokes.

Check out the Grill., originally uploaded by Fatty Will Rule the World!.

We have been having orthodontal issues at our house.

First: Bumpus went to the dentist for a cleaning and checkup. After inspecting Bumpus's mouth, the dentist inquired as to how long Bumpus had been living with half of his front tooth missing. Bumpus did not know his front tooth was missing. A little spackle and some insurance took care of that issue for a while...until we have to deal with veneers or crowns.

Second: Brain Cell, the inhaler of all things food and barbituate, is a dental-issue-en-per-pee-tooooooooo-eaty.

Third: Rufus's top two front teeth were loose and loose and loose and this went on for weeks and weeks and weeks of wiggling and worrying and my recommendation on what foods to eat to get those suckers to finally break free. This got to the awful point where the top two teeth were sticking out frontwards, at odd angles, out of Rufus's mouth, from the pressure of his tongue pushing against them. The whole thing makes my skin crawl: teeth and clipped finger/toenails, two things with which I cannot deal. Just thinking of it makes me want to have a rigor.

Finally! One of Rufus's teeth fell out. The fairy came as expected. Then, the other tooth shifted, as it no longer had to share space with the other front tooth. Like me in the bed on a Saturday morning, that other tooth just shimmied right on over to the middle of the space. This then went on for two days, until the second tooth at last fell out. The new tooth was already very visible underneath it.

So these things are supposed to happen in three's...I should be paid up for a while.