Removing teeth from small children
Created | Updated Aug 31, 2006
Pulling out my siblings' teeth used to be the highlight of my day, literally. Somehow, they got to the stage where they were losing teeth left and right within about two weeks of each other, and, since at that point they still trusted me, it fell to me to make sure that their teeth fell out before they got loose enough that they started worrying about choking on them in their sleep. Well, as is the way in the Haven House for Wayward Teens (HHWT), things soon got out of hand, and it got to the point that I would be asked nightly to pull anywhere from one to in one case *seven* teeth (only in our house would the rule "no tooth-pulling after bed time" have to be made). My brother ended up looking like a hockey player for about a month, and the older of my two younger sisters was almost as bad.
The method was (and, I'm quite sure, still is) this:
Acquire one roll of paper towels (or toilet paper, if *insert parental unit here* won't let you get the paper towels) and a small, willing (stupid) child (loose tooth optional). Convince him or her that there is indeed a loose tooth in his/her mouth. Find a tooth you don't particularly like... doesn't matter which one... and clamp onto it with the paper towel. Instruct the child to smack you when it starts hurting.
Pull. Stop after a bit (ignore the child when he smacks you; it probably doesn't hurt anyway). Let the child breathe. Then pull again. Eventually, the tooth'll come out, and the child can then approach the aforementioned parental unit and ask for money.
Then you charge em a 50% commission.
If you're feeling creative, you can involve fun things like tweezers, shoelaces, and wrenches. One of my particular favorites was always duct tape.