How to Kill Any and All Self-Esteem I Might Have

Make fun of my teeth. Go ahead, just do it. If you want to make me sad, make me angry, make me want to crack you over the head with some sort of blunt object, please, by all means, make fun of my teeth.

I was born with an abnormal frenulum--the thin flap of skin that connects your lip to your gum. Mine was just bigger than everyone else’s, and it extended lower onto my gum. That caused the gap in my teeth. You know, like Lauren Hutton, who my mother would bring up each time I announced I hated my teeth. "I bet Lauren Hutton doesn't hate her teeth," my mother would say. "They are her trademark. She's famous for them."

Well, I was famous for them too, but in a less glamorous way. In sixth grade, for instance, Dallas Pelz--one of my mortal middle school enemies--was working on some group work with me when he beckoned me to move closer. When I leaned in, he raised his pencil and jabbed it toward my mouth. When I jerked away, he started laughing.

"Come on," he said, "I want to see if I can fit this in between your two front teeth. I bet I could."

I bet that doesn't happen to Lauren Hutton.

After years of similar torture, I got braces during my freshman year. Unlike a lot of people, I liked having braces. I liked getting the colored rubberbands changed every month, I liked my orthodontist, I liked the way I looked--my whole face, I thought, seemed perkier--and I liked that I only had to have them on for eleven months.

So I had a frenectomy--where they snipped that flap of skin that was causing the gap--and got fitted for my braces. When they came off, my gap was much smaller. Still there, but nothing like it had been before. So they decided to put bonding on my two front teeth to make them look like they were closer together. So, really, my two front teeth--which have slim layers of bonding on them--are really pretty big. Bigger than normal. And I'm very conscious of that. Now it's the gap and the big teeth I have to contend with.

Of course, after middle school, things calmed down. My mortal enemies all moved away to play football at fancy little private schools in Buffalo, and I got my first boyfriend. Things were better. I lost weight, got a better haircut, gained some self-confidence.

And things improved even more when I came to Minnesota for grad school. There was, for example, the incident with the Wily Republican, who is definitely in an attractiveness bracket that is out of my league. I mean, what's a boy like that doing with a girl with messed up teeth and legs that are capable of regaining stubble mere seconds after they have been shaved? Have you seen how cute the WR is? Certainly a boy like that deserves a girl with perfect teeth and smooth legs.

Still, even though I may have gained a boatload of confidence during the post-high school years, I realized the other night all that can be destroyed easily. I also learned that girls, especially slutty drunk ones, are bitches.

Last Saturday was my last Saturday in Minnesota, so I requested that, like every night over the past week, we go out and get drunk. I just wanted to be drunk in places I hadn't been in awhile--places like the skeevy undergrad bars, the dance club, and the local strip club.

On our way into the strip club, a loud, wobbling, and trashed group of girls came crashing through the door, squealing about how the wet t-shirt contest--a Saturday night staple--was as good as won by their friend, the ringleader, who, when participating in the wet t-shirt contest, goes by the name of Tea Bags.

This girl, it should be noted, is no amateur. She's a wet t-shirt regular, and she's got her routine down. She doesn't waste any time doing what she's supposed to be doing, which is walking out in a ripped-up t-shirt and dunking her boobs in water; instead, she bursts through the doors and rips her shirt off, then starts writhing on the pole. I'm sorry, but I'm pretty sure it's called a wet t-shirt contest because you're supposed to be wearing a WET T-SHIRT. If they wanted her to do what she does, they could call it a Slut-Off or an I Could've Been a Stripper, But Mom and Dad Are Paying for My College So I Don't Have to Be contest.

Regardless, this was the girl who was standing behind us when I handed my license to the bouncer. I was saying something to the bouncer when I heard this girl, in a high-pitched, squealing voice, repeat the sentence I'd just said. She was mimicking me. And there is nothing I hate more in this world than being mimicked.

I turned around. "Oh, I'm so sorry," I said sarcastically. My saying five words to the bouncer while he checked my ID was clearly impeding her from getting to the sign-up for the contest.

"Well, you're being stupid," she said.

I'd never wanted to punch someone more.

"Right," I said. "Okay."

What I really wanted to say was, "You're short and ugly. Fuck off." But I didn't.

Then the girl turned around to say something to her friends. I didn't hear them and was already walking away, but Katy, who was stuck back further in the line, did hear them.

"What a bitch," she said when she found me inside. "She was really nasty about you."

"What else did she say?" I asked.

But Katy wouldn't tell me. "It's not important," she said. "I don't want to tell you. It doesn't matter."

But you can't do that to a girl. You can't tell her someone was talking about her and then not reveal what was said. While the thing will probably hurt, the not knowing can be just as infuriating. So I forced Katy into telling me.

The girl had mocked my teeth. She said that I was made of nothing more than two giant teeth and was thus nothing to concern herself with.

I wanted to die. Absolutely wanted to die. I wanted nothing more than to go find a cool, dark corner and curl up in the fetal position and be invisible. For the rest of the night I had trouble smiling. Or I would find reasons to hold my hand in front of my face when laughing or talking. When people took pictures, I kept my mouth closed.

I was having flashbacks. I was hearing Joey Haywood and Dallas Pelz and some of the older boys who used to ride my bus sing songs about how ugly I was, how you could fit a whole tree in between my teeth, how I was chubby, how I was never going to have a boyfriend.

And when I ran into one of my former students--the one who used to be the mascot, but got fired when he showed up drunk in the giant bull costume--I was pleased when he gave his usual speech--the one that had to do with how much he'd always wanted to date me, how there were some days when I would come into class wearing something that made him think, My God, she is so hot. But even though I got it, it still couldn't heal the wound, and neither did the fact that the girl who threw the insult lost the wet t-shirt contest, despite jiggling her boobs up against the pole and raising her skirt to show her goods to the boys in the front row. The damage had been done. And for the first time in a long time, I'm looking at hard at my reflection and thinking, Why can't my teeth just be normal?

But at least the rest of the night wasn't ruined. There were the strippers, the giant tents of dollars my ex-student stacked on the stage in my honor, a drunk JP, and a really cute boy in a red shirt who danced with JP. Just seeing that gave me a thrill.