so maybe i mentioned that my fake tooth (from a sledding accident when i was twelve) had broken on a piece of very hard bread (which is funny because the Japanese girl i named my new bicycle after....Brunina....thought when she first met me that my name was bread. so she calls me pane...you know the Italian word for bread. my roommate Andrea thought my name was bart when we first met. he confided that this went on for two weeks.

I've been able to keep the tooth in my mouth during the day...... thankfully.....(somehow...long story) but i need to take it out to eat. so one day when i was taking a break in this park near the school and having one of these chocolate pastry snacks that i am a little obsessed about i had to take my tooth out. usually i use my front shirt pocket to hide my little toothless secret but today i hadn't the right shirt for this and thought that i didn't trust my trouser pockets too well because they haven't been washed in a few weeks (i know my mom had taught me better then this.....but really its a life style that takes more hard work then people tend to realize). so i decided hesitantly to set the little porcelain tooth on top of my backpack. thinking yeah i wont forget..... no problem.....but the thing is when i eat these amazing chocolate pastries i tend to loose grasp upon reality.... doesn't chocolate sort of do that to anyone?

this then gave me the perfect state of absentmindedness to send my tooth sailing across the ground which was covered in thousands of similarly shaped, some tiny some not, tooth colored stones (i.e. teeth).

literally for a full hour i crouch on my hands and knees afraid to move much more then an inch for i may step on the wrong stone or kick some dirt around...sort of half freaking out and half thinking that i was dreaming. the reality of situation had not fully taken hold because i had not as of yet had to try and communicate to people without having to open my mouth of fear that i will eventually rely on, for the next two weeks plus, a strong Appalachian accent so that people wont be as embarrassed for my awkward displacement into the world as "the guy missing his front tooth".

after 45 minutes i decide the only logical route now is pick up every single last stone, pebble, tooth and throw them into the grass nearby. eventually people began taking notice in my virtues and the awkward stares nearby made me feel even more pressured that if i fail...they will be just as upset as myself. so this is when i decided that it will be highly appropriate that if/when i find this tooth, this possible center of the universe. i will have to cause a scene.....not anything to complex or over dramatic....but i will hold the tooth up to the heavens pronouncing the day to be saved and glorious all on account of my good/bad luck.

maybe three minutes after this image runs through my mind i find the shiny white porceline vanier and try to cause a scene but just hold it up really high with a look of disbelief on my face.....no one realy even noticed except this one women that sat drinking her coffee. i pack up my things and grab my bicycle by one hand walking slowly and entirely full of accomplishment. i decide that this lone women deserved some sort of explanation.....so i show her the tooth from a distance, which now that i think of it probably didn't make a whole lot of sense when i grin and pretend to put the tooth back in and out of my mouth (which of course i waited to wash it before really putting it back in. i mean the cleanliness of trouser pockets and the graveled floor of a park are maybe completely different things from a distance but maybe more similar then one may think when viewed from the perspective of a treasure hunt). She looks at me very confused and maybe panicked and seemed as if to say "why me? i really was just bored watching him sift through the sand and pebbles, i don't care" after this she frowns pretending not to know me. well....... i didn't know her either.

now i have my new tooth sent from my amazing dentist in Michigan! i actually managed to loose the old tooth one hour before i had the new tooth cemented in. i tried to panic momentarily but managed to calm myself down. I've lost much of a craving for bread. its funny when getting use to a broken tooth how a new fixed tooth feels even more awkward. but i eat more chocolate because i am again more confident with the alignment of the universe.