Hope you hoes know it ain't cheap

How Sable (almost) got her fangs back

Four things I’m taking with me well into my mid-thirties are all of my wisdom teeth. They’ve fully invoked squatter’s rights, cozily tucked into my gums. One of them is peeking out, the top left one. If I stuck my finger way back there, I can feel it slanted outwards as if peeking across a row. Somehow every dentist I’ve seen since 2015 has ignored this, even when I brought it up.

One year, when I had my own employment-sanctioned health insurance and thus no longer relied on my mom to make my own doctor appointments, I went to a fancy new dentist in my neighborhood. It’s fancy in that the reception area is all white lacquered glass, like a TV set of the future. It’s one of those places that you think, “Imagine if someone from the past time-traveled to here and saw this. The look on their face!” Each room has a TV screen mounted high up towards the ceiling so you can watch Netflix while getting a filling, presumably. Honestly, it would probably take me the time of a cavity fill to even choose something to watch.

The fancy dentist's office had a young, hot dentist. Hot in the way that I wondered why someone that conventionally hot would become a dentist but then again, I always forget that dentists have unbridled access to all the fun drugs. A dentist visit is unnerving as it is, but a hot dentist visit feels like one of those dreams where you’re back in high school and you’re in your underwear on stage in the auditorium. Or something like that. I wouldn’t know. I’ve never had one.

Anyway, the hot dentist put this crazy-looking mouth opener device in between my jaw that basically parted my lips like a curtain to reveal a scandalous level of gummage, way more than anyone should ever want to see. I don’t know if these things come in sizes, but whatever standard size he used made me feel like my lips were about to rip apart. Then, the dental hygenist took lots of close-up shots inside of my mouth with a DSLR camera, like some sort of teeth paparazzi. My macro teeth images are then gridded out on a big-screen TV monitor behind me, like those big multi-split screens at the grocery store, looking for shoplifters hiding in my gums.

Hot dentist made quick work of his diagnosis. He said my slight overbite is putting pressure on the crown surface of my premolars so the constant smashing of my teeth together has, over time, creating a trough in the centers, with the edges forming a two-pronged fork. Archaeologists who studied teeth of neanderthals noted the flat surface for mashing leaves or whatever (as opposed to a shark or a lion’s sharp and bladed teeth or ripping throats out of gazelles and sea gazelles). All my tension, rage, and fear have forged my mini mouth swords via the hammering and grinding of countless overcooked burgers and anxiety spirals. Long after the nuclear winter when our remains are found, future archaeologists will be like “Man, were these people carnivorous or just like really stressy?” (Just kidding, no remains from organic life forms will be left behind post-apocalypse.)

Behold these wavy chiclets

My two front teeth are slightly buck, which I’ve always been self-conscious about, and one of them protrudes slightly more forward than the other, like an identical twin intent on imposing its superiority. Hot dentist suggested Invisalign to smooth out the curve of my top row teeth, which are more like a square than the U it’s supposed to be. He also recommended plucking all my wisdom teeth out preemptively because when I’m older, my jaw will shrink, causing my teeth to crowd in on one another and go all crooked. The Invisalign cost about $6000, which the receptionist tried to casually ring me up for it at the end of my visit that I paid for with an FSA card that most definitely did not have $6000 on it.

I have never had my orthodontia roasted so thoroughly. Like I said, every other dentist I’ve been to has looked at my x-rayed teeth, noted that they were firmly nestled in their little gum beds properly, told me to make sure I’m brushing all the way to the back, and that was pretty much it. But those dentists weren’t hot.

Or rich. Four years after losing that particular brand of American healthcare, I pitched a story for the big influential beauty magazine I worked at — How I Got My Fangs Back — one that could very well involve me getting new, fancy teeth for FREE. I was going to girlboss my way to some free teeth. (Freeth! Freeth! Freeth!)

See, the thing about perceived perfection is that what seals the deal is a smile and I have always been self-conscious about my smile (even before everyone had veneers). “Good teeth” are a mark of wealth and class — prohibitively expensive for plebes like me and anyone else whose chompers are organically aligned. It takes a bag to get them to stand at attention in military formation. The Yongs were not a braces family. We were more of a “wait and see what happens” family. Still are. Luckily, most of what has happened has been fine.

I don’t smile in photos with my teeth showing. The act of stretching the lower half of my face into a smile shape makes my upper lip fold inwards like an awning, effectively disappearing. My cheeks widen my face into a hamburger-looking silhouette, and my teeth, having grown into a musical chairs type of arrangement, make me appear youthful the way acne makes one appear youthful. Imagine being disappointed with the way your face illustrates joy, the only way it knows how.

Anyway, it was not worth it to me to commit to aligners to rearrange the “organically-shaped” pearls in my mouth, a few of which were already unevenly chipped and rounded off by years of dietary erosion. So my proposed solution was to… re-fang my canines. It’s not an original idea. I mean, like most perplexing yet powerful trends, it’s already big in Japan. The call of the Yaeba is strong. I thought if I could have my canines made into two dagger-shaped pillars (just the tips), they would counter my other tweedle-dumb-tweedle-teeth feelings with a slightly mysterious air, a suggestion of ferality, and a vaguely unsettling vibe. And all the previous dumb-teeth feelings I had would be gnashed away just like that with the addition of an orthodontic edge.

Like, tasteful, you know??

For the best and most expensive-looking results (this particular practice runs you about $4000 per tooth), I visited the cosmetic orthodontist to the stars. The practice was even fancier than hot dentist’s. Also, all the dental assistants and teeth techs were hot — they looked like femme-bots in their little white body-con uniforms as if they were in a Lady Gaga video circa The Fame Monster (Deluxe Edition). Plus, all the clientele waiting in the reception area looked wealthy and carefree. What did they ever have to fret over? They were getting brand new custom sets of perfectly straight, white teeth! Just like them!

I was invited into the teeth tech room to observe their process “for the story.” Very focused-looking dudes sat at computers, digitally rendering the architecture for clients’ future sets of veneers. Some of them were hand-painting ceramic veneers various watercolor shades of “natural tooth” under big magnifying glasses like art restorers at The Met (they called themselves the Tooth Fairies. Cheeky). The tables behind them were lined with rows of teeth molds and temporary veneers in various progress stages with little name tags on each box. (One had “J. Lawrence” on it, but it was neither confirmed nor denied if it was that J.Law.)

After taking molds of my teeth to upload them into the machine and do a bit of Photoshop to show me the fangs of my dreams, Dr. Redacted explained the process of just how veneers get put in your mouth.

You know what I didn’t know about veneers? Rather than masterfully gluing porcelain bits to your teeth and shaping them… your real teeth that you’ve spent your entire life milk-growing yourself are filed down into little nightmarish nubs, forever deleted, never to grow again.

And then, your perfectly sculpted veneers are expertly cemented onto those sad little nubs with some sort of teeth Gorilla Glue that (allegedly) lasts at least 15 years. Keywords: at least. What if in 15-20 years I lose all my money in some bad investments and then my veneers break and I can’t get them fixed? When I had perfectly functional, normal-looking teeth this whole time? Honestly, I just sorted out the very grown-up task of compiling a Fuck you fund. Having an Oops my teeth fund as well as that? I still gotta pay estimated income taxes every quarter. It’s getting brutal. How much did I really need baby fangs?

I decided… maybe not that much. I mean, I still do want them. But the idea of shaving my totally fine, functional, innocent teeth into oblivion was a big holdonholdonholdon for me. Not because it would be painful (I’m sure you’re like knocked TF out), but because my teeth simply do not deserve such violence. They have conquered the jerkiest of beef jerkies, crushed celery into pulp, even chomped on ice cream with no frigid complaint. It seemed unfair. It seemed extreme. It seemed…irreversibly expensive also. There are some things that are more precious than price—permanence being one of them. I mean, it looks like there are lots of Invisalign dupes now, so…

Perhaps fangs need to be earned. Like, maybe I will get into a fight one day and one of those canines will be a casualty that requires cosmetic intervention. Instead of a bronze medal or trophy, my reward will be a set of vicious new chomp chips to benefit my future zombie self once the nuclear apocalypse necromances humanity into meat-munching meanies.

As a wise saying goes: don’t bite the teeth that feed you.