annie's song, a memory

Tonight we were down in the office working, and Lydia appeared with her empty retainer case.

She had this retainer back when she was really small, like six. A molar had to come out early, so the retainer was mostly to hold that space open, blah, blah, blah.

She wore it for years and it was a stupid thing because during that time, so many teeth were falling out and growing in, her mouth was changing all the time. Usually there wasn't much for it to click onto, so at bedtime we had to glue it in her little mouth with Poligrip.

In the morning before breakfast she'd have to use paper towels to get all the glue off the roof of her mouth, and she HATED that, although it is a bit comical listening to a six year old bitch about the woes of Poligrip.

Anyway, she doesn't need it anymore; it just sits in the case on a shelf.

Well, it was gone. I told her to forget it--it's of no use now anyway. It'd probably turn up eventually.

We heard her questioning Julia and Tim, and using a pretty sharp tone of voice.

In a minute, she was back. JULIA had it! "Ewww, what for?"

"She likes it." (It wasn't in her mouth. She had it on her desk.)

Okay, that's just plain odd.

But here's a dumb retainer story: We were at my parents' place in Wisconsin for the weekend, and after breakfast, she couldn't find the retainer. She had done the thing she was told by the orthodontist to NEVER, EVER do: wrapped it in a napkin.

So we had to go out to the dumpster and get the trash bag from breakfast, rip it open and start looking. My mom and I crawled around in the grass in the hot sun, sifting through hash browns and cold scrambled eggs, sticky old half-eaten pancakes, and from the garage, playing on my dad's tape deck, we could hear John Denver singing Annie's Song.

As we pawed through the trash, "You fill up my seeeensesss, like a night in the forest..." floated across the yard. I got the giggles real bad. We did find it, held it up like the $600 trophy it was.

Darn retainers anyway. love, Val