My friend Lindsay has two little girls, one of whom lost a tooth over the weekend. Before the tooth fairy could come, the tooth… went missing. Fortunately, it had been found by morning.

Mine never was.

As far as I know, I only lost one tooth at school, and I’m not quite sure what happened to it. I can’t remember now if it came out, I put it in a pocket and dropped it, or if it came out on the playground and I didn’t notice that it had happened. I do remember, though, that I spent what felt like hours looking for it. I combed the playground methodically, walking slowly across the width of it, then turning at the end and walking back a few inches to the right. When my mother came to get me, I tried to convince her that I had to find my tooth before we could go home. She made me get in the car.

I was half-hysterical and sobbing. I’m sure I had plans for that tooth money. (I got a dollar. Eventually, it occurred to me that most of my friends got considerably less, and I began to question whether a real tooth fairy would pay differing ransoms for different children’s teeth.) We had some elk teeth, though, and a human tooth with a gold filling in it (which I believe had been my grandfather’s). “I’ll put one of these under the pillow!” I thought. “She’ll never know the difference!”

Mom didn’t think that was such a great idea.

Eventually, I settled for putting a note under my pillow, explaining the lost tooth.

In the morning, I got a dollar.

And I thought, “Hey, maybe I could just put a note like that under my pillow every night.”

Mom didn’t think that was a great idea, either.

Damn her, always being right.

Tags: I Was a Mercenary Child, Mom, Story Time, The Tooth Fairy

I have a confession to make. Valentine’s Day used to mean something to me.

In elementary school, I longed for Valentine’s cards from the boys I crushed on. And, of course, I got them – the same flimsy cardboard hearts, adorned with bad puns and cartoon bears, that every other girl in class got. There were rules, you see. If you brought Valentines, you had to bring one for everyone – and they all had to be the same.

Things changed when I started dating. Now Valentine’s Day brought gifts that were just for me. I might still have some of them, somewhere. Flowers and candies and strange plastic toys. I don’t remember that I was ever single on Valentine’s Day, but I also don’t remember any specific Valentine’s Day. It’s all a blur of red and white, and it’s all faded into the mists of time.

I got married (the first time), and while we always said “Oh, we don’t really do Valentine’s Day,” we did. There was always a special meal, at a restaurant we didn’t often go to, and there was always Valentine’s sex, because Valentine’s Day means you have to be in the mood.

Looking back, I realize that Valentine’s Day meant something special then because, no matter how I denied it, something was missing from Every Day that had to be wedged into this one heart-soaked Day in mid-February. That’s no longer the case. I know it’s cliche to say that “Every day is Valentine’s Day,” but if that means that every day, you say “I love you,” and that every day, you do something to show it – then it’s no cliche.

And so tonight, because we have no need to indulge in a Greeting Card Holiday to prove our love for each, NovySan and I are home, drinking cocktails (Pegu for me, a Perfect Manhattan for him), and getting ready to spend some quality time on UStream with our friends Be The Boy and The Slackmistress.

It was the Slackmistress’s recent post on Pointless Banter, concerning Crap Women Don’t Want for Valentine’s Day, that provided the original impetus for my Valentine’s Post. When she described a Valentine’s Day card display as looking “like they split Cupid open and shook his red heart-shaped entrails all over the place,” I thought, “What if we celebrated Valentine’s Day really authentically, as the feast of a martyred saint?” Which led me to a meditation on the reason for the season, as they say.

According to the always-infallible Wikipedia, there are three saints commonly identified as the Saint Valentine after whom the holiday is named. Catholic Online, though, while acknowledging that there is some controversy over the number of St. Valentines, and their exact occupations, focuses on one – a Roman priest, who, according to the Nuremberg Chronicle, was stoned, beaten and finally beheaded for the crime of performing Christian marriages and attempting to convert Claudius II (also known as Claudius Gothicus, which leads me to a wonderful mental image of Derek Jacobi in heavy eyeliner and latex club wear).

So, if you aren’t spending time with your sweetheart tonight, or if you can’t come and join us for Be the Marriage LIVE! (On Ice), you might consider martyring someone. Or, in fact, massacring several someones, if that’s more your speed. Just don’t tell the cops I sent you.

Tags: Ancient History, BeTheMarriage, Holidays, Navel Gazing, Story Time, Valentine's Day

Ever since I moved to California, strange things have happened with my phones.

It started at my first California apartment, in San Leandro. I had a wireless phone I’d brought with me from Wyoming, and whatever frequency it was on, it seemed to pick up signals from someone else’s phone. My phone would ring – and sometimes it was an odd, strangled sort of ring – and when I picked it up, I’d hear a conversation already in progress. The first time, I made the mistake of trying to talk to the people on the other end. “Hello?” I said. There was a pause. Then a woman snapped, “This is a private conversation!” “Oh,” I said. “I’m sorry.” And I hung up.

The second also happened in San Leandro, and it had to do with my phone number. How can I put this delicately? It was… It was not a virgin number. It had, in fact, been with someone before me. I don’t remember her name, but she was an elderly woman, and another elderly woman kept trying to call for her. She’d become very agitated when I tried to explain that this was no longer her friend’s number. After several months of this, her son called. “My mother is very upset,” he told me. “She says this is her friend’s number.” “I know!” I told him. “I wish I knew her friend’s new number, or knew what had happened to her.” He thanked me, and said he’d try to explain it to his mom. I didn’t hear anything else about the old lady whose number I had until about a year later, when I got a call from her church. All this time, I’d been assuming she must have died, and her family hadn’t told her friend – but don’t you think her church should have known if she was dead? And isn’t it a bit odd that they’d waited so long to find out why she wasn’t coming to church? There’s an older woman in my church who complains that if she misses a single service, ten people call to find out if she’s okay, but this poor lady had been MIA for over a year. I still wonder where she went.

The third involves my cell phone number, which apparently once belonged to a television producer whose wife’s name is Promise. This led to a surreal conversation that went something like this. *ring ring* “Hello?” “Promise?” “What?” “Hello?” “Yes?” “Promise?” “Promise hello?” “What?” “Promise what?” “Is this Promise?” I did eventually figure out whose number I had, and I’ve looked up his new number, but I haven’t given it out – though a number of the people who’ve called have asked me to. And I find that odd. Have you ever dialed a wrong number and asked the person who answered what number you should have called? Is the phone company in the habit of telling you, “We’re giving you Steve’s old number, so if someone calls for Steve, tell them his new number’s 555-234-6969″? My favorites, though, were the ones who got angry about it. “Well, how do you know this used to be his number?” As though I’d stolen it from him. “Because I get a lot of calls for him,” I’d say, and this confused them so I could escape.

And the fourth happened just yesterday. I went to get a glass of water, and when I came back, I had a missed call from a number I didn’t recognize. Several hours later, the phone rang again, and I answered it. “This is Chia,” I said. There was a pause, and an old lady said, “Hello?” “Yes,” I said, “who were you calling for?” I half wondered if another old woman might be haunting my phone line. “Who is this?” she asked. “Chia,” I said. “Jill?” “No, Chia. Who were you calling for?” “My phone rang,” she said, accusingly. “But I don’t know who you are.” “You called me,” I said. “I didn’t call anyone!” she said. “Okay,” I said. “Goodbye.”

Tags: California, So That Happened, Story Time, Telephone, Who's On First?