sugarless

If someone had told me when I was 14 that allowing cheap chewing gum to sit on my back teeth during class so that I didn't get caught chewing it would cause cavities, and that those cavities would have to be replaced every ten years, AND that fillings coupled with pregnancy would eventually cause a tooth to crack, and that a cracked tooth would be painful and require a crown (and would just miss a root canal by the, um, skin of its teeth), and, really, having minty breath in 9th grade was NOT WORTH the hours and hours of having a stranger's hand in your mouth, not to mention the hundreds of dollars in copays and uninsured dental work .... if someone had just told me that, I swear I would have sprung the extra seventy five cents for sugarless gum.

Who am I kidding. Someone probably did tell me. And I probably rolled my eyes, because I was 14 and in 9th grade, and minty breath was worth any cost. Fourteen-year-old girls are ridiculous. But I'm saying now, it wasn't worth it.