Financial bombshell, my fellow inebriates: Miss P needs four grand worth of orthodontics to correct a crossbite problem.
I am really shattered by this whole thing. But not P—she’s bubbling with excitement. She can’t wait.
If you ask me, she didn’t even make any effort to grow straight teeth. You should see her x-ray; it’s a disgrace. All kinds of sub-gum jockeying among her emerging permanent teeth—it looks like a mosh pit in there. Four thousand dollars of chaotic eruption.
What was P thinking, developing teeth like this? Kids these days.
I suppose I was mooning around about it, because Mum shot me a dirty look. “What’s it got to do with you?”
“It’s just that it’s a lot of money,” I said with what I hoped was a sigh of understanding. “I know P can’t help it…. It was really your fault, and Dad’s, for genetically merging your English and Ukrainian teeth. And now we’re all paying—with our dream.”
“Which is?”
“Our dream of a full bar.” Sometimes my mother is so obtuse.
Liquorstore Bear 