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| Nice professional photo, right? Well, all I see are my nose and teeth! |
If I ever say “oh, that’s a good picture of me,” what I’m
really saying is “that’s as good as any picture of me is going to get.” My
favorite photo of me is my drivers license photo because it’s small and kinda blurry.
I have two things that I wish I could change about my face. My
nose is beyond humongous. When I look in the mirror or at a photo of myself, it’s
all I see. It might as well have a red light flashing on it like Rudolf. I’ve
tried different angles and poses, but my giant schnoz always takes up the whole
picture. It also has this weird bump in the bridge that makes it look crooked. Having
a nose that’s big and crooked is just
adding insult to injury.
The second thing I’m self-conscious about is my teeth, which
are also big and crooked. They’re not horribly
crooked, but I’ll certainly never be in a toothpaste commercial even though I had
braces as a kid. I endured being teased and called “brace face” and other
non-original names. One kid told me my face looked like a train track. I should’ve
told him that his face looked like it got hit by a train, but I was too
mortified to think of a clever comeback.
I endured the physical agony of having braces. They shredded
the inside of my lips and cheeks, which were always bleeding, and my entire
face ached constantly.
I couldn’t bite into anything, like apples, so I had to cut food
up like a little kid. My grandfather and I would be the only ones scraping our
corn off the cob at family dinners.
Food always got stuck in my braces, which was super
disgusting. Sandwiches were the worst! Not even pretty colored rubber bands
make your braces look good when there are hunks of soggy bread covering your
teeth. I dreaded lunch time at school. I ate as fast as I could with my head
lowered. I kept my lips over my teeth as I ate so no one would see all the food
stuck in there. Then I would run to the bathroom, withdraw an arsenal of tools from
my backpack, and begin the nasty food extraction process.
After all of that, I should have one kick-ass smile today.
But I don’t. My teeth are still crooked, and I’m still self-conscious about my
smile. My dentist told me that I would be a perfect candidate for Invisalign, a new alternative to
braces. From what I read, the treatment really works. Invisalign has straightened two million smiles and counting!
That’s impressive.
Glad to know I have options for fixing my crooked smile. That
gives me hope. Now if only someone would invent an invisible nose straightener.
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| Hopefully you're too enthralled with my adorable toddler experiencing his first snow in this picture to notice my big, crooked nose and teeth. |
