“How long do you have to wear them?”
Most common question when it comes to Adult Braces.
Adult Braces is a term for what’s been glued into my face. Are Adult Braces different from regular old braces? Of course they are. Okay, same metal, same basic components, and after examining other people, everything looks exactly the same. And they don’t express being “adult” by having tiny nude women engraved into the brackets. This is not even an option. I’ve asked.
What’s different is that the entire body around the braces is about to turn 30 years old. I celebreated my 29th birthday with these. 28th, that year I had an Anterior Open Bite Splint. Hard to describe, but imagine a sports mouthpiece glued onto your top teeth for about a year, anchored by small screws that are screwed through the gums and the tiniest bit into the jawbone. Also, you’re not only bad at sports, you are bad at the ELEMENTS of sports, including things like wearing mouthpieces. So it’s pretty uncomfortable.
30. There’s no way these are coming off before I blow out those candles. Well, that doesn’t sound right. There probably won’t be any candles. I’m turning 30, not 1. Plus, I’m not a complete idiot who is impressed by tiny little flames suspended above confection. The candle has to be one of the oldest inventions. Pretty much right after fire, people tried to figure out a way to carry it around and have sex near a version of it that was less intense so that they couldn’t see their own old-time, caveman features. Would you want to fuck a caveman? Even if you were one? We really need to thank the inventor of the candle. Without him, I don’t think anyone would have been able to fuck with open eyes until at least the mid 20th century. People in old times just were not hot. Even Benjamin Franklin, who I’ve heard was fucking his way all over France and Pennsylvania, looked like Humpty Dumpty made into a man.
Anyway, Adult Braces. For whatever reason, people always ask when they’re coming off.
How much longer?
Did they say how long it would be?
How long do you think it’s going to take?
The truth? I never asked. Never.
It was pretty clear right off that my teeth were going to present a challenge. While discussing a payment plan, the accounts lady let me know that they normally do 2-year payment plans, but in my case 3 years would be fine.
Some people tell me they had braces for a year. Or even less. Fuck those people, by the way. I refuse to belive they really needed treatment. Of course, there are always minor cosmetic improvements to be made to someone’s teeth. But by that same token, if you just took your car into the mechanic and said, “I know nothing about this. Do you think there’s anything about it you could slightly improve? Given a $7,000 budget?” What do you think the chances are that he’s going to take a quick look and say, “Looks good to me”?
If you are one of those people, one of these people who I assume are weaklings and that’s why your teeth were so ready to lay down and move over as soon as a little wire was introduced, here’s a piece of advice: LIE. When people ask how long it took, JUST LIE. Say it was 2 and a half years.
This same advice also applies to people with high metabolism and people who scored really high on some test 15 years ago after not studying and having the flu.
Other people tell me they had braces for years. And years. I ran into a girl I knew, and she told me that her dad had Adult Braces for 6 years. 6! If that’s the way this is headed, I’ve still got goddamn 3 years to go. That seems nuts. That seems completely nuts.
When people ask, I say that I don’t know. I don’t know how long. Then I joke about how my goal is to get them off before I go bald. So far I’m not balding, and maybe the idea is to also trick a little compliment out of people.
The truth is that I just don’t want to talk about it. I really don’t.
Talking about the braces and all that, that’s fine. But talking about how long they’re going to be on?
How about this? How about a short list of similar questions that we don’t usually ask people?
-How long do you think it will be before your acne clears up?
-How old does your child have to be before he’s not annoying anymore and we can hang out again?
-How many years do you think it will be before your dog dies. Seriously, estimate.
-How long is it going to take you to pay off your student loan?
Okay?
The technique I’ve come up with is similar to the one I would try and cultivate if I had to do 5 years in prison. The bars are a lot smaller in this case, and I didn’t have to stab anyone to move the process along. Although metal screws WERE drilled into my face, which sounds like something Dahmer would do. But I think that if I had to do 5 years in prison I would just try and forget. Not keep track of time. Not make a hash mark on the wall for every day that passed.
By the way, if you’re reading this and someone you live with is doing that, just add some lines today, erase 8 tomorrow. Just throw the whole thing off. Because the way to get through 1825 days is to not start counting until you’re close to the end. At least half way. Counting is depressing when you’re still far away from the goal. It’s like trying to save pennies to buy a really nice picture of Jimi Hendrix painted on a piece of cardboard to decorate your prison cell. It takes forever.
All that said, I know. I know it’s the easy thing to say. It just comes out. I made almost the same mistake the other day at a memorial service when I asked a family member “How’s it going?” as opposed to just saying Hello. Real Dumb.
So what could a person say instead?
How about a few questions/phrases that I would prefer?
-Those braces look real dumb, but the face surrounding them is a face that is hot enough for softcore pornography.
-How about you and me go get a bag of Puffy Cheetos, turn the lights off all the way and then eat those Cheetos?
-Do you find that sounding just a bit more like Daffy Duck has made your sex life better or WAAAAAYYYY better?
I think it’s a little like being in a wheelchair. Not much like that because all I really have to do is close my lips. Plus people don’t ask me if my penis still works and whether or not I crap myself. Although they do question how the braces will affect the quantitiy and quality of opportunities to make my penis work. And people who know me really well do ask about the last time I crapped myself, but that’s 100% not related to the braces and can be attributed to an important lesson about eating spoiled meats.
Okay, so it’s nothing like being in a wheelchair. Maybe it’s more like being pregnant. Again, I still don’t get the same number and quality of sex questions. But there is an end date, and I often hear people ask a pregnant woman “How far along are you?”
Which is kind of dumb. Because there are two answers.
A) Only two months.
This means that there is still a long ways to go, a point that most askers make and it’s totally unnecessary. Believe me, when you’re the person experiencing the issue, you are well aware of how long time feels and don’t need to be told by some asshole drinking a margarita or eating a caramel, depending on which issue we’re talking about here. Frankly, I’m having trouble keeping straight what I’m talking about, a quandary that is not helped in this case by the fact that I ate one of the larger bags of Wendy’s that’s ever been passed into a car window.
The other response is
B) Eight months.
This means you’re rounding the corner, a point where most people talk to you like you’ve already made it. Nobody is going to disagree and say that 8/9 is mathematically far from the end, but if you’re not sleeping, not eating, having heartburn, and having to deal with people staring at your swollen breasts (or if you are experiencing whatever the pregnancy symptoms are as opposed to my personal braces side effects) 30 days is still a long time. And goddamn it, if it takes 6 years of this, I sure as hell don’t want people explaining to me how close I am. Because you still went through the previous 5 years.
That’s the whole thing. With a baby, it’s not like you get to do 30 days, then take a couple weeks off for spring break, then pop the blastocyst back in there and cook it up for all of June before putting it aside for an Independance Day BBQ. It’s going 9 months straight, and after 8 months of trouble the last month sucks. Because you’re goddamn exhausted and sick of doing this stuff for 8 months.
Braces are the same deal. Even if I’m in the final year of 6, it’ll have been 5 years straight. From age 28 to 33. Maybe by the time I’m 50 it’ll only be a distant memory. But for now? RIght now I don’t have the perspective.
So let’s just talk about something else. Or ask me, but ask at your own risk. Because I might just respond with, “Oh, who knows? But allow me to tell you another little story about some white sheets, an illness, and some very bad sausage”