National Nitwit

By Max Dugan, Guest Contributor

(Toledo, OH)—At eight years old, life is pretty sweet: I can run through the sprinkler naked, play video games all summer, and crash with any one of my three Spiderman blankets.

That all changed last night when I lost my first tooth, and learned that the Tooth Fairy is a straight-up bitch.

I don’t even know where to start. I mean, I went to bed a full half hour early—at 7:00, if you can believe that—nestled with dreams of PlayStation II games and pellet guns.

I awoke to the biggest travesty in human history: there was a quarter under my pillow.

I’m sorry, perhaps you didn’t hear me. THERE WAS A QUARTER UNDER MY GODDAMN PILLOW. In case you were unaware, or just awoke from frozen carbonite, a ‘quarter’ is an outdated mode of American currency that was quite popular in the 1940s for purchasing bubble gum, condoms, and peep shows. The last time it was competent in a financial transaction was in 1987, when my Aunt Vicky needed to call a tow truck after her Buick LeSabre broke down on the Jersey Turnpike. Mom said she was coming home from one of her rich boyfriend's houses, and that I should never again call Aunt Vicky "Mom," because that filthy whore couldn't mother a kitten, let alone a hyperactive little boy.

But I digress.

The Tooth Fairy stiffed me. I don’t know if Toledo is on the tail-end of her route, or if she was tit-deep in a bottle of Nyquil, but she stiffed me.

Gone are the days of wiggling my bottom incisor, eagerly anticipating a huge cash payoff. Gone is my youthful optimism, bragging to Tommy Wilson during recess that I would make enough money to buy us each a Pizza Hut.

The Tooth Fairy is a bitch, and my suffering is inconsolable.