May 24, 2022 — Has a truer card ever been written!?! If you or anyone close to you has had major dental work, you know it’s no fun. Though at times it can be pretty funny. 😬 Our great Massachusetts rep, Karen Miller, was vacationing in Turks recently when she broke a tooth. Painful and frustrating enough without it being over a weekend, on an island, more than four hours from home. Her hotel concierge recommended a dentist who, after pulling and drilling and pounding around in Karen’s mouth for several hours, stepped back and sighed, “I need a drink!”

The card above is born of my own experience and a ridiculous number of hours spent in the dental chair … back when I was nine, my dad built us a fancypants playhouse in the backyard of our home way out in the country. Not able to wait until he’d put in the electricity and a finished-ceiling, at dusk one night I went in, unrolled my sleeping bag, plumped my pillow, and pulled out my book.

This was before backlit Kindles so, when sunlight was no longer streaming in through the windows, to read I was going to have to come up with a Plan B. I looked up and saw, where the ceiling would soon be, a 2” x 4” ledge where the walls met the roof.

Inspired, I ran to our long gravel driveway and grabbed three weighty rocks, each about the size of my fist. Back in the playhouse, I pulled the belt from my robe, tied one end around my flashlight, placed the other end up on the ledge, and stacked the rocks on top of it. Eager to test my innovation, I laid down face up and raised my book to read by the light of my nifty new hanging lamp until seconds later, BAM!, it all came crashing down. Thankfully, my eyes were spared, but gone were my two front teeth.

As you may know from your own childhood escapades or those of your kids, when you bust your two front teeth, you need crowns, which then have to be replaced every decade or so. And if you want your teeth to actually continue to match over time and look more-or-less real, you need veneers on the other teeth, which also must be routinely replaced. Procedures that are time-consuming, painful, and quite costly. So every time I’ve plopped down in the dentist’s chair over the years, my first thought has always been what a downright dumb thing that was for nine-year-old me to do! But, ya know what, this time around I’ve taken a different approach.

Now, I think back to how calmly and patiently my mom was that night, quietly tamping down my hysteria. It must have been really hard for her to see the damage I brought on myself, and to imagine what missing teeth might do to a school girl’s self-esteem, yet as she patched both my scratched face and shattered ego, she assured me things would look better come morning.

Not so! By the light of day, I saw the big gap staring back at me as I brushed two less teeth. Mortified, I went down to breakfast, and there was Mom holding one of those dastardly rocks! She presented it to me like a gift and, as I held it, I saw that she’d glued a soft, moss-green felt to the bottom. Turning it over, I read that she’d penned with black magic marker: “Jodee’s Teeth.” Then I watched with pride as she placed it high on a shelf of honor, alongside the trophies my big brothers had won in sports and 4-H.

Even over the dentists’ drill, I can still hear Mom in my memory, honoring my emotions that beside-myself night as she respectfully explained, “You might not have gotten it 100% right this time, but you’ll remember to put more careful thought and planning into a project next time. You must keep using that great imagination of yours, Jo, and never hesitate to pursue an idea, because where would the world be if the inventor of the first hanging lamp had given up just because he or she hit a similar snag?!” ❤️

As I sat in this sort of reverie in the dentist’s chair recently, I noticed the dental assistant was practically lying on me as she reached way across to my other side … and pulled out a long hair she’d apparently spotted under my chin. “Ouch! Wait!,” I said, “Did you just pull a hair out of my face?!” Giving me a great, “You’re welcome!” look, she said, “Oh! There’s another one!” and reached back over and yanked it out, too!

When she saw the look on my face, she knew she’d let her caring carry her a bit too far but, OMG, we laughed so hard at her well-meaning audacity. “She went for it!” my Mom would say. And, “Gotta keep laughing!” she’d remind me. So here find a few designs that might lighten the mood for friends, family, and colleagues who are having dental work or tending to another necessary health nuisance but will undoubtedly feel better soon. You keep smiling, too!

Jodee Stevens
Founder & Chief Creative