The Problem with Not Retaining Your Retainer
By John Addyman | john.addyman@yahoo.com
Not many people know this, but the first person to discover gold didn’t do it in California.
Jimmy Dorkberry, at the tender age of 16, came home from school one night and told his parents at the dinner table, “I think I can make some money straightening people’s teeth.”
His parents listened thoughtfully, then went into the kitchen and laughed.
But years later, there was little Jimmy, tacking up a sign at his modest office, describing his role as an “Ortho-Dontist” in his community. You had crooked teeth, he’d get things square.
Of course, today we have a lot of professionals who are orthodontists. They derive the name for their profession from the Greek words “ortho” and “dentist,” which means, literally, “Open your wallet, dad.”
And they are everywhere. When’s the last time you saw a high school kid with crooked teeth?
Years ago, my oldest daughter came home one day and told her mother and me that she knew what she wanted to be when she grew up.
“What?” her mother and I asked, waiting for the standard answer — nurse, teacher, pilot, television meteorologist.
Nope.
“I want to be an orthodontist,” my darling daughter told us. I couldn’t wait to get to the church to say my thank-yous.
When I was in fifth grade a long time ago, the only kids who wore braces and dental appliances were geeks or rich kids. They were also the only kids who knew what floss was. Today, kids better have braces or they will use the 14th Amendment to file for violation of their civil rights.
My daughter had inside her mouth what was known in the orthodontic business as a “retainer.”
“What does it do?” I asked when she came home from the orthodontist with her mouth stuffed full of retainer.
“It hurts, that’s what it does,” said my daughter.
“What’s a retainer supposed to do?” I asked my wife. If it’s a “retainer,” I reasoned, then it must be there to keep her teeth in her mouth, right?
My wife shrugged.
“Maybe it’s like a shield,” I figured. “Maybe this is part of the contract we have with the orthodontist to fix her teeth — the orthodontist puts this thing in her mouth to show everyone we’ve got him on retainer to fix her teeth. Maybe it’s got his name on it or something.”
We looked in our daughter’s mouth to see if the retainer said “Calvin Klein” or “Dolce Gabbana” or “Dior.”
Nope.
My wife shrugged again.
Some of you may not know what a retainer looks like. Well, it looks like the top half of a boiled crab, all pink with little things sticking out here and there.
From my years as a teacher and guidance counselor, I know that retainers can be a family problem in middle schools because kids take out their retainers to eat lunch. The kids put the retainer on the lunch tray. Then the kids get to talking and doing homework and stuff and sharing gossip and the next thing you know they have to hurry for class and get their trays to the dishwasher quickly.
Then they dump their plates and papers and milk cartons…and retainers.
Some 15 minutes later, I’d have a crying child in my counselor’s office asking to call home.
The call would go a great deal like this…
“Mom!”
“Yes?”
“This is your daughter. I have a small problem.”
“How small a problem?
“About the size of my retainer.”
“So you have a $3,000 problem.”
“Right.”
“Tell me about the small $3,000 problem.”
“I left my retainer on my lunch tray and I dumped my tray and the retainer was on it and now the retainer is in the dumpster here at school.”
“Well, dear,” said the mom, “you’d better go get it.”
“In the dumpster?”
“Right. That’s where it is, correct?”
“Yes.”
“What are you waiting for?”
“You want me to go get it now?”
“There will never be a better time.”
“But I’ve got my acid-washed jeans on.”
“Wear some boots.”
“Mom, I don’t think you understand how difficult this is going to be…”
“How difficult will it be, daughter?”
“We had spaghetti for lunch.”