I only have 12 teeth now,” I said to Rachel the other day. I smiled – with difficulty – and counted off the pearly whites. Six on top, six on the bottom.

She stared at me, wide-eyed. “Wow.” Behind my hand, I grinned. She believed me.

I just had my wisdom teeth pulled, but – although I’m still stuck chewing mashed potatoes between my tongue and the roof of my mouth – I was left with the average-adult 28. (I counted.) I’m glad those 28 were left alone; if they’d touched any more than the four that were removed, I’d still be an invalid, laying in bed moaning.

The past few weeks I’ve been frequently reminded of a little fact that I am extremely happy with: I will never have to go through this experience again. Wonderful, wonderful news.

The extraction – complete with 20 shots – was a painful process. Afterwards, when Rachel gave me a nice, little-sisterly kiss on the cheek, had I had the voice for it, I would have jumped out of bed screaming. It hurt.

I cannot yell partially because of the little sutures in my mouth. I can’t feel the ones on top, but the bottom stitches stick out a bit and I am constantly prodding them with my tongue, despite better judgment. I do not know what the stitches are made of or when, if ever, they are to come out. I do know – the result of close examination with a mirror – that the color of their material is black. At least, I hope it is the stitches that are black. Rather than some area of my already-plagued mouth.

Despite all the complaints, Mom says that my mouth (and I) are doing remarkably well. However, considering her basis for comparison is her own experience, I could be faring a lot less than well. Mom’s operation took place almost 25 years ago, and as soon as it was over, according to Lala, she had to endure a car trip from Oregon City to The Dalles with no antidote for the pain. And I thought I had it bad.

Still, there is one thing I’m a little disappointed with. When I had teeth pulled prior to getting braces, the dentist put them in a little envelope, which I took home and placed under my pillow for the tooth fairy. If my wisdom teeth were put into any envelope and presented to me, I don’t remember it. I’d wanted to see what the tooth fairy’s reaction to such things would be. Thinking back though, it’s probably better I didn’t get the teeth, since the TF’s note probably would have run along the lines of, ‘Phinney, what’re you thinking? I want your own teeth, not something spit out of the mouth of your pony.’ I might have been devastated. For the record, I do not have a pony.

With the departure of those four smart ones, my mouth has no teeth left to offer. My days of negotiating with the tooth fairy are over. But her visits to our house have not ended; she regularly leaves money and a note for Rachel, who has holes in her mouth to rival my bomb craters. At the moment, her mouth is more empty than full.

So maybe she isn’t that gullible, not doubting when I told her I had only 12 teeth. If she said the same thing to me, I’d be a fool not to believe.

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Sara Phinney will be a sophomore at Pendleton High School and can be reached at sara87@oregontrail.net