What New Kids On the Block has to do with my teeth.

Women know how to create lists a mile long of personal qualities that they would change if they could.  Sometimes there are great attempts in the New Year or on a birthday to fix, to tone, to correct.  Sometimes these qualities are physical, sometimes mental, sometimes spiritual.

But being that on Square Piece we love to be happy, isn’t it more enjoyable to create lists of all the things for which we are satisfied?  Granted, the list might be shorter, but I think it’s a lot more fun.

You already know that I have a lip obsession.  And while that is true, I don’t mean to limit this region.  No, this goes further than the lips.  It’s a whole mouth obsession… ’cause really I love my teeth, too.

I haven’t always loved these chompers.  No, no, no. During several years of my childhood, I was affectionately dubbed “Snaggletooth” thanks to two protruding incisors.  These fangs were not genetic.  Rather, I wound up with the crooked teeth thanks to New Kids On the Block.

Ya follow?

No?

Well, when I was a young girl, my sis and I just looooooved New Kids On the Block.  On one afternoon, we were chillin’ at Ma and Pa’s house (our grandparents), parked in front of the living room television.  In a cruel twist of fate, my bladder cried for the loo and I had to tear myself away from the screen while my sister soaked in all the entertainment.  Naturally, while I was on the pot, I heard Manny squealing and shouting down the hallway.

“SUZY! NEWKIDSONTHEBLOCKISONNNNNN!”

(Yes, in her hysteria that all sounded like one word.)

Frantically I scrambled out of the bathroom and blazed a trail down the hall.  Unfortunately my legs were moving so fast that even if my brain had processed the fact that Mandy herself was blazing her own trail up the hall, I wouldn’t have been able to stop anyway.  So we collided.  I got whacked right in the mouth.  My teeth grew in crooked.

Thanks, New Kids On the Block.

Eventually my mom took pity on poor Snaggletooth and fitted me in braces.  Snaggletooth was so pleased about this that she felt like a special, little peacock, with her chest puffed in pride and rainbow colors of rubber bands adorning each tooth.

So, yeah, I love my teeth.  Braces are the best gift Momma ever gave me.

(Thanks, Momma!)