Tooth Fairy

Something has unsettled me since we moved to London. It's not so much the fact that my nine-year-old now felt-tips tattoos on her forearm, or the inventive things that local youths can do with a steak knife. It's not even the pungent  knotted sacs that swing from the lower branches in our local park.

No, the thing that has most unsettled me is the unreliability of London tooth fairies. In our provincial days, when teeth first started tumbling, you could count on a quid beneath the pillow. The blood, the gore, the anguish were washed away by the certainty that fairy gold could be translated into a bumper bag of Haribos next morning.

Perhaps two recent house-moves and the sheer number of teeth have overwhelmed the magical benefactors. For now my children place their shed pearls doubtfully amid the bedding. 'Of course, the fairy will come!' I assure them with a conviction I do not feel. Last time I placed a Post-it on my laptop, reminding the fairy to drop by, but she was evidently held up on the North Circular for the reward didn't appear until late next morning when tears tugged her lazy conscience.

Tonight my son suspensefully mummifies his molar in a wad of loo paper and tucks it under his pillow. 'What if the fairy forgets again?' he asks. 'She won't!' I reply resolutely. And she doesn't. I leave a pile of coins on the top stair to jog her memory and the following morning £1 has replaced the damp package. But my son does not seem celebratory. I ask him what's amiss. 'The fairy leaves Ruby and Dylan £5 when they lose a tooth,' he mutters.

Damn these city tooth fairies! They didn't remind me of London weighting.

Click here to see more Funnee posts at Actually Mummy's plus a three-year-old's perception of the tooth fairy

Comments

  1. Tooth fairy/Haribos... Connection?

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  2. Our London fairy arrived with a crispy fiver (didn't have the foresight to keep back some coins juts in case the tooth fell out at night time)....
    However our dizzy little country fairy was so pleased with herself for sprinkling glitter all over sleeping child & leaving fairy note & gold coin she completely forgot to take tooth away!!!
    She had to come back the following night with chocolate coin - so double excitement!!!

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  3. The tooth fairy here in (new England usa) is pretty lame, 9 out 0f 10 times she doesnt even show up, but then I think its because she doesnt like teeth that have been pulled, yanked, and ripped of of said childs mouth.

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  4. It's a minefield. The last time the tooth fairy came to our house she she was flummoxed by the request for a letter and picture of herself. But whaddaya know? The tooth fairy now has access to email so the situation was retrieved. (Just about).

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  5. Does the London weighting stretch as far as Berkshire? That's an incentive to move before F starts losing teeth, if ever I heard one.

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  6. Move to Worcesterhsire. 50p was the going rate there.

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  7. The daft Surrey tooth fairy slipped the £1 coin inside the pillowcase last time, so everyone thought there was a kleptomaniac fairy on the loose as well.

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  8. Five pound?! Blimey 'o Riley.

    When I was a child the tooth fairy once left me an IOU note. Weirdly it was in my mum's handwriting. I think that was the day my childhood innocence was crushed.

    Thanks for linking up. Just a bit worried about the contents of the knotted sacs on the trees near you. Actually don't tell me, I have a feeling I don't want to know.

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  9. A FIVER?! Friends of mine would get different amounts depending on whether it was a molar or not, but my tooth fairy had a flat rate of 20p, the stingy bitch.

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