Thursday, July 28, 2011

Missouri Loves Company; a/k/a The Tooth, the Whole Tooth, and Nothing But the Tooth


My alarm went off at 6:00 a.m. By 6:45, I was sitting outside Expert Tire waiting for the good people there to address the problem of the flat tire. Bad news: the nail we had run over was in a very unlucky spot, and any patch they put on would only prolong the inevitable. Good news: in one hour flat, a new tire was installed, and we were ready for our day!

Unexpected events had taken a toll on us, so we were eager to pay our Kansas Turnpike toll and get out of Dodge (we never actually visited Dodge City, but you get the idea).

We got to Kansas City on a Thursday; by lunchtime we learned a thing or two about President Harry Truman, who was born and raised in Independence, Missouri. We even ate ice cream at the little shop where Truman had his first job. But first we ate lunch at the Courthouse Exchange, a burger joint founded in 1899. While we were there, we noticed that Sarah’s first loose tooth had turned nearly 180 degrees in its socket, so we asked our server for a Ziploc bag … just in case. (This is what is called foreshadowing.)

We drove all through the afternoon, feeling much better about our trip, and in a seemingly short time we exited I-70 in Chesterfield, a suburb of St. Louis, to spend the night with our friend Angela and her son Cameron (husband Chuck was away on business but wished us well). Angela was a member of the St. Mark’s Young Adults Group back in the day, and she was one of the ushers at our wedding. Cameron is 4 years old, and he and Sarah immediately plopped down in front of an episode of Super Why while we caught up with Angela.

Eventually we went out to eat at Canyon in St. Louis. Christy was reading a Scooby Doo book to the kids in the backseat when, all of a sudden, POP! Out came the tooth.

As we put Sarah to bed tonight, she intoned, “This is the most exciting night of my life!” I tried to explain that the Tooth Fairy can’t come if you don’t go to sleep, but something tells me sleep will still come slowly to our almost-6-year-old girl tonight.

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