Why I Never “Fixed” My Teeth
I was offered the chance to erase the most visible sign of my poverty.
He began pulling up color-coded spreadsheets on his computer. He explained that I needed braces because many of my bottom teeth were still baby teeth. They could make space for the adult teeth to finally come in.
It would cost three thousand dollars to fix the teeth that had been neglected in my youth. The young man pressured me to get another set of braces on my top teeth, for cosmetic reasons only. “Doesn’t a pretty girl like you want straight teeth?” he asked.
I realized I had made a mistake: I wanted my old face back. When I moved back to Seattle after graduate school, I skipped out on my remaining $330 bill and had another orthodontist remove my braces.
Elisabeth Sherman is a digital reporter at Food & Wine. She lives in New Jersey.
Enter your email address to receive notifications for author Elisabeth Sherman
Success!
Confirmation link sent to your email to add you to notification list for author Elisabeth Sherman
More by this author
A Search for the Secret Sauce I Hoped Would Connect Me to My Heritage
I sought a cherished symbol from my own childhood, not a standardized emblem of all Indonesian culture, which I can’t and shouldn’t pretend is all mine to take.
Am I Asian Enough?
Erasing my dark under-eye circles won’t change the fact of my Indonesian heritage.
More in this series
I Am Partially Deaf and I Write to Be Heard
Why can’t the abled world fit into our world?
Cut Knuckles
There—the small red cut marks on the knuckles, which any bulimic could identify as those made by the teeth when finger-inducing vomiting.