“No! Not with the knife! Please don’t pick your teeth with a knife!” The irony that I’m shouting this as loud as I can, hoping the 95-year-old who kept me alive against all odds when I was a wild and unruly child will actually hear and mind me is not lost on me. Call it karma. Or things coming full circle. Whatever.
“These are not teeth,” my old lizard says with satisfaction. She only does what she wants and is the most stubborn creature I’ve ever met. She drinks Pepsi at night despite my protests, spends time bent over in a probably unhealthy position cleaning the bathroom floor – which is already clean, mind you – and hides stashes of chocolate as if they were gold bricks. I get it. She’ll never mind me. It’s ok. I figure the best I can do is probably make her laugh.
