If you've had the luxury of experiencing a normal child-like most, then you'll probably remember the stories about the tooth fairy.

When you lost your baby teeth, you were supposed to put them under your pillow or in a glass overnight.

Come morning, the teeth would have been replaced with small gifts or coins.

Excited, you'd run to your parents and tell them about the visit from the ferry, blissfully ignorant

to the fact that they knew all along what you'd get because they were the ones who put the gifts

there in the first place.

I can't be 100% sure, but I think it's safe to assume that it's more than often the parents that tell their children about the fairy that comes in the night to collect the teeth.

As for myself, my parents never bothered to introduce me to the wonders of imagination and fairies.

They were too preoccupied, drowning their senses in bottles of vodka and Jack Daniels to care.

Instead, I was told a story by my friend, Lindsay, who showed me the $5 she had gotten

in exchange for her first molar. She seemed genuinely surprised when I told her that I didn't

know anything about the tooth fairy and in hindsight I don't blame her

When I first heard the story I thought it was scary that a stranger would creep into your bedroom at night and take your teeth.

When I lost my first baby tooth after my dad had a rather nasty fit during a drunken stupor.

He simply threw it into the trash and didn't speak a word of any fairy wanting to collect them.

He was a large man and he had gotten a gold tooth they used to brag about during his rare moments

of sobriety, which puts a certain irony on this entire ordeal.

Of course, I didn't share that part with Lindsay, and as strange as I thought it was,

I became curious about what I could get in exchange for a tooth. In fact, it made me eager to lose

my teeth. Luckily for me, I didn't have to wait long. Three days after my conversation with Lindsay, my dad got another hissy fit and threw a half-ended

beer can at my face when I accidentally tripped and spilled one of his vodka bottles

all over the living room carpet.

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