Sunday 4 July 2010

Cognitive dissonance and the tooth fairy...

Frances (8) has lost her tooth at last! Hurray! It has been hanging on in there for weeks!

Peter (11) is annoyed, as F has now lost more than him. But he will avoid the orthodontics (is that a word?) that F will have to undergo in the next 10 years. He has a big mouth, hers is far too small. Never mind, she will probably have the most perfect white smile as an adult.

But the real source of P's annoyance? The lack of funded tooth-fairy-income. Now I am pretty much 100% sure that they both know the deal. You lose a tooth, it goes under the pillow. You get some money (if the parents remember...) But F's demands have become more complex. She wrote a note, properly spelled and everything. She wanted the money. And to keep the tooth (so just what is in this for the 'fairy'?).

And the latest sting, announced by my wife as she went to bed? F wants fairy dust, like her friends in Gloucester. This is apparently glitter of some kind. Which we don't have. 'Bless' those Gloucester parents. You know who you are. 'Fairy dust'!! I ask you!

'Say there's been a strike in the fairy-dust mine,' says wife, as she goes to bed, leaving me to compose a note of dubious integrity before the whole fairy dust issue was even raised.

Solution? Dash the 8 year-old fantasy? Ignore the issue? Buy some glitter (at midnight in Dunoon?)

No - a spattering of a rather cedar-ish incense from my personal stash of liturgical combustibles. A note (in registrar's ink) accepting the no-tooth-keep-the-cash-here's-some-nice-smelly-dust narrative, and the deed is done.

Oh, happy sociology of rituals!

3 comments:

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  2. Andrew what a lovely toothy story. Marcus did exactly the same thing asking to keep the tooth. from a Gloucester Mum :)

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  3. Hahaha! It makes me miss the old days when we were still kids expecting tooth fairy loot, whenever we put our teeth under our pillows before we sleep. I kinda understand why P was annoyed here. Kids really look forward to what the tooth fairy has to bring.

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