The Battle of Tooth Liberation Day

I was ecstatic; my 13-month ordeal was about to come to an end. No more small cuts on the tender flesh inside my mouth from the metal attachments on my teeth. I was 72 hours, two events, and three states away from a gorgeous Hollywood smile.

Friday night, I worked an event until late. By the time I got back to the house, settled into my jammies, and went to the computer it was 12:30 AM. My flight was at 8:10 AM, and was leaving from the very busy John Wayne Airport in Orange County. ‘Big deal, I’ll sleep on the plane and at the hotel,’ I thought as I scrolled through flight, hotel, and rental car confirmation emails.

My plan was to fly from Orange County to San Jose on Saturday morning, get some rest at the hotel, and attend our cousins’ wedding reception on Saturday night. On Sunday morning, I would fly from San Jose to Seattle, hang out in the city, and get my braces off first thing Monday morning. I would have lunch with my former co-worker, and show off my pretty teeth on Monday afternoon, and be back home by Monday evening. Simple enough; and I had most of it planned in advance.

The first hint that my busy weekend was not going to be the perfectly choreographed art piece that I intended came when I looked at my flight reservation to Seattle for Sunday morning. Through my tired, blurry eyes I wanted to see my flight leaving at 9:35 AM, but in my zeal to get a cheap fare had accidentally booked the flight for 9:35 PM. I quickly double-checked my hotel reservation, and was relieved that I could check in at all hours since I secured it with a credit card. The rental car was another story. I had to re-book with a different company, because my original reservation didn’t have an office open past 11:00 PM, and I was coming in at 11:30 PM. I finally got to bed at 1:30 AM for a brisk four hour nap before waking to shower and catch my flight.

My flight into San Jose was delayed, of course, but I made it to the hotel in enough time to enjoy breakfast with my family, UFO abductees, conspiracy theorists, and transsexuals. My husband booked us into the DoubleTree the weekend they were hosting the annual Alien Abduction Conference on one side of the hotel and the Transsexual Rights Conference on the other side. It was fantastic! At one point during the stay I found myself in the elevator with an 8-foot tall woman in a hot pink dress with big, blonde hair and an overweight man wearing a shirt bearing the face of an alien that said “Abducted and Survived”.

The Saturday night party commemorating the wedding of our cousin and his new wife was fantastic. Her heritage is Mexican, so our auntie went all out with a fabulous buffet of authentic Mexican dishes, a Mariachi band, and eight different wedding cakes. The bride’s mother brought in the best tequila I have ever had in my life, and by the end of the evening I had consumed way too much cake and liquor. Fortunately, I was able to guzzle three bottled waters and some Pepto to avoid the hangover and stomach ache.

Sunday I woke up and called the airline first thing to find out if I could hop an earlier flight to Seattle, but it was all Murphy’s Law that day. The flights out of San Jose were booked solid until 9:30 PM, so I made plans to attend the dim sum brunch with other members of the family, and hang out with Jeff’s uncle the rest of the day.

The highlight of Sunday was attending another cousin’s 60th birthday party. This cousin was one of the original Haight/Ashbury hippies, and still ran with a like-minded crowd. We sat in the sun, talked a little politics, admired her brother’s enormous medical marijuana plants, and ended up eating more cake and drinking more alcohol.

I caught my flight to Seattle after an argument at the security line. My facial cleanser was 5 oz. instead of 3 oz., so they gave me the choice of throwing the cleanser away or checking my bag. I checked my bag, because I’ll be damned if I’m going to go for a day or two with a dirty face to assist the façade of “national security”. By the time I got my rental car, and checked into the hotel, I was, again, looking at a four hour nap before my appointment, but nonetheless I was happy and excited.

The tooth liberation process took 90 minutes. The brackets came off within the first three minutes of the appointment, but the cement holding the brackets had to be drilled away by the orthodontist. I was edgy as the drill hit my teeth, but knew I had to find some way to deal with it, so from deep in my brain, the rhythmic breathing that I practiced during labor surfaced and took over. The crazy thing was it put me completely at ease. I was able to focus on the fact that the sensitivity during drilling was not coming from the drill; instead it was the work of the over-enthusiastic assistant holding the cold air tube. I suffered through the appointment and now had beautiful teeth to show off. Nothing could make this day bad.

I had a pleasant lunch with my former co-worker, and headed to the airport where my flight was on time. To avoid haggling with security, I checked my bag. I had a flight from Seattle to San Jose, a little over an hour layover, and then would finish the whirlwind weekend with a flight from San Jose to Orange County. I boarded the flight, and after ten minutes of waiting it was announced that President Bush was flying in to SeaTac airport to do a fundraiser, so all flights were grounded for at least 30 minutes. I had an hour layover in San Jose, so I kept an eye on my watch thinking the whole time, ‘If I miss my connection because President Dipshit is doing a fundraiser for Congressman Worthless (Dave Reichert), I’m going to be one pissed off lady.’

I didn’t miss my connecting flight, because when we got in, I had seven minutes to run all the way from Terminal C to Terminal A, and I ran…in three inch heels…while my husband was yelling at me on my cell phone that he couldn’t find the car at the Orange County airport that he was trying to pick up to avoid paying an additional $5 in parking fees.

I ended the day showing off my teeth to my family, and getting to bed in enough time to get a full eight hours of sleep. On Tuesday morning I awoke to find my luggage outside my front door, because it had been lost the night before from Seattle to San Jose. Thankfully, I am able to look back on this hectic weekend and smile with my new, Hollywood teeth.