Tooth Monster

The Tooth Fairy is a familiar figure in the lore of raising children. She shows up after a child loses a tooth, takes the tooth, and gives the child some sort of reward. My parents' relationship with her gained me small sums of currency. My grandparents must have been better friends with her, because I was rewarded more substantially when I lost a tooth while on holiday.
Before I became a parent, I assumed that teeth came naturally, as part of the growing process. I now know the truth. They are delivered by the Tooth Monster. The delivery does not occur immediately, as the trade with the Tooth Fairy does. The Tooth Monster lingers, invisible, slowly pushing the teeth, one at a time, through tender baby gums. He pushes them up randomly, so the gums can hurt in several places. His precision in applying pain to children is remarkable in its craftiness. Would that I had enemies that deserved such pain, I would seek to hire him. But no one deserves this. No one deserves weeks of inconsolable crying (and screaming). No one deserves a pain induced fever. No baby can deserve having to look at a parent who looks so lost and desperate while trying to offer consolation.
The first tooth has just come through. I hope the others follow quickly and with less pain. Or I will find that Tooth Monster, and that will be the end of him.

Daddy Weiss