An event that leaves a child singing “All I Want for Christmas is My Two Front Teeth” for more than four years would probably be remembered well into the victim’s adult years. The moral of the event would be engraved into the mind for even longer. When I was less than four years old I experienced such an event and, true to form, have yet to forget it. Now, 11 years later I still have not forgot the lesson that I learned from that tragic morning.

As a three year old kid I did not look very far into the future, in fact I didn’t even glance into the future. This was especially true when dealing with candy. When I saw a piece of candy it wasn’t a question of what time, who’s candy, or a matter of permission, simply; when I saw it I put it in my mouth without a second thought. Normally that might not have been a problem, but at 7:00 in the morning when my mom was minutes from inviting me to breakfast there was probably better things I could’ve done.

Before I could get ten licks on the cheap plastic like sucker my mom burst into the room I shared with my brother. Her glancing eyes took in the messy room littered with toys as if it was an abandoned dog that was her sole responsibility to clean up to an acceptable level. “Jamie, you should clean up your own room instead of waiting until it is so messy that I can’t ig-…” the pile of toys my mother had been collecting from their proper places on the ground dropped to the floor with a clatter of plastic. I then, wondering what miracle had put and end to the spiel, looked up at my mother just to be met with two glaring eyes. However, she had no reason to be mad, for my level of attentiveness was no lower than it had been the day before.

“Mom, why are you so mad? I didn’t do anything wrong,” I said innocently in my baby voice. Right after finishing my sentence I realized what my mom was staring at and why she was mad: me and my sucker.

The cops would say that, “I refused to go quietly.” Actually I pretty much did the opposite. I cried, screamed, kicked, and went boneless with my feet dragging on the ground behind me with a mind of their own. Soon, after tremendous effort on my mom’s part I did reach the bathroom, where I had my precious sucker ripped from my mouth causing a tremor to go through my skull. I then, after a thorough lecture was forced to partake of the worst substance known to child. The substance came in two flavors: hard and soft. I being a three year old decided that soft was the correct answer and went with that. After two squirts of the soft soap into every corner of my mouth, my taste buds were so overwhelmed with bitterness that I shoved the bottle away and spit until there was nothing left to spit and my mouth was dry.

My mom thinking that I had learned my lesson left me in the bathroom to wallow in my own grief with, literally, a bitter taste in my mouth. But I, had different plans. What better thing is there to get rid of a lasting bad taste than a good old sucker? I immediately fished into the garbage and retrieved the dirty sucker. Fuzz, paper, and dust covered the previously delicious candy, and I knew that something had to be done. Climbing onto the toilet I ascended to the sink where I would be able to clean the sucker and make it tasty once again.

Several minutes of constant furious scrubbing and running water eventually resulted in a relatively clean sucker, a completely wet child, and a soaked counter. The combination of the three along with the four foot high counter didn’t just spell disaster but assured injury. On my way back across the counter I lost my footing and slipped in a way that landed me face down parallel to the floor. The reassuring gap between me and the unavoidable landing went down slightly before it was stopped by a surprise collision between my face and the edge of the counter. With a crack of my neck I was whipped around into an almost feet first fall. Warm liquid ran down my face and I let out the scream before I even hit the ground. My feet gave way under the weight of my body and I crumpled to the floor like a lifeless puppet with a broken string. The extra pain flowed from my legs to my head like a river into an already overflowing pool. Instantly my mom was on the scene cradling me in her arms while yelling for my dad to get the car running.

Later at the emergency room the doctor informed us of the cause of the bleeding. Apparently when I had hit the counter one of my front teeth had been shoved up into my gums and would have to be removed. That day they dug into my gums and took out the tooth without trouble. I then was informed that it would be years before my big teeth would grow in. Spending four years having an unneeded gap in my smile was not exactly enjoyable, but I didn’t hate it either. If that injury had not of occurred I probably wouldn’t remember any of the events of that day 11 years ago. But because of the injury and the “scar” that It caused I have not forgot a single moment. So, now when I see a piece of candy or any kind of desert I think about what the consequences might mean and if the piece of candy is worth it, and as it turns out most of the time it is.