Brace Face

"Brace Face"
"Metal Mouth"
"Railroad Tracks Teeth"
even "Dum Dum who can't chew gum gum"

Those are the actual results I got when I googled nicknames for kids with braces. Wow.

A lot of teens have braces and almost everyone goes through the awkward stage, the look-in-the-mirror-and-realize-that-you-had-a-big-piece-of-lettuce-from-lunch-stuck-in-the-wires-of-your-braces-when-you- were-talking-to-a-cute-guy stage, the I'm-not-going-to-refuse-popcorn-just-because-my-orthodontist-told-me-to stage.

And you know what? No one ever tells you when you have that piece of lettuce in your mouth. Nope. They just let you walk on out of the cafeteria and up to that boy, and they even let you have a whole conversation and strut down the hall with a huge smile, feeling all confident. And then, as you round the corner to the bathroom and rush to the mirror to make sure you looked okay when talking to him (not that it matters anymore...too late now), only now after you gape at the limp green vegetable do they say, "oh yeah I saw that." Well, why in the world didn't you tell me?

We all go through that as teens, but no one seems to want to help anyone else out. They just won't give a sista (or brotha) a hand. The sad truth is, there is and probably always will be those awkward food-in-the-braces moments and the "Brace Face" shouts. We just deal with it for a few years, and suddenly, high school hits and it seems everyone has perfectly straight pearly whites. Magic.


But I'm still waiting for that appointment to come. For now, I'm still just a "dum dum who can't chew gum gum" (although I sneak some every once in a while).