I’m at a Mexican restuarant with my girlfriend and another couple. Both of the girls are super hot and we’re all dressed nicely. After dinner we’ve got tickets to Quidam, one of the traveling Cirque du Soleil shows. It’s the first time one of those shows is in the Washington DC area and I’m overwhelmed with excitement. And, for the first time in a long time, maybe since I was a child, I’m smiling. Not just a little smile either, I’m grinning from ear to ear. Big ol’ toothy grin, kinda like I’m insane.

Our food hasn’t arrived so we’re all munching on chips and salsa. I grab a chip, scoop up some salsa and take a bite. As I’m chewing it feels like a piece of the chip is lodged between my front teeth. I touch it with my tongue and it feels really weird. Turning to my girlfriend, I ask her to check my teeth and she sort of gasps.

“Um, I think your tooth is broken.”

What?

“I think your tooth broke in half. Oh shit.”

WHAT?

I reach up and feel my front teeth and it does NOT feel right. I pull the object out that’s lodged in there and clearly it’s half a tooth. Not a top or a bottom half, mind you, but a left or a right half. My tooth has split down the middle. VERTICALLY.

MOTHERFUCKER!

Even worse, I look at the remaining half a chip in my hand, and the other half of the tooth is sitting on it, mocking me. Little half tooth bastard. I feel like I’m gonna cry. See, it’s been just over 24 hours since I got four new veneers on my upper front teeth. Already, one of them has cracked. They’re supposed to last 10 years. “Don’t try to remove bottle caps with em,” the dentist said. He did not, however, mention that I could not utilize them to crack through what is, apparently, the equivalant of wrenching a metal cap off of a beer bottle, a fucking TORTILLA CHIP. Maybe he should have told me that I needed to be cautious about Wonder Bread. Soft, fluffy bread can wreak havoc on fragile body parts, like teeth.

“Actually, these veneers could explode. But only if you touch them to things like food. Or liquid. Or air. They’re not rated for breathing at all. Truth be told, it’s best if you keep them cryogenically frozen, and buried in an underground lair, safe from anything that might destroy them when you’re out with hot girls in a public place, and don’t want to look completely retarded with gaping hole, front and center in your grill piece. That’ll be thousands of dollars. Please pay the receptionist and enjoy your new smile!”

Needless to say, I spent the rest of my evening with my mouth slammed shut. I’m certain that every person who saw us that night thought, “Damn, that dude looks insanely pissed.” If anybody looked at me wrong I’d have wanted to fight. But I was scared that if they called me a name my other 3 veneers might leap right out of my mouth and run. Chickenshit fake teeth.

The next morning I called the dentist and demanded an appointment immediately. The three of us; myself, and the two halves of my tooth, got in the car and sped to his office. When I walked in I just shoved my hand out, sad little broken tooth in my palm and hissed, “Ten years comes around faster than you’d think.” The dentist was flustered and tried to explain to me that, on occasion, accidents happened. You’re right, they do. Like right now I might want to accidentally use one of your those cleaning scrapers to pop your eyeball, then one of your drills to bore a little hole in your skull, and then that spit sucker thing to vacuum out your cerebellum and put it on a fucking tortilla chip. OOPS! Accidents happen!

He kept saying that it was a fluke. I wasn’t convinced. I was prepared for a lifetime of crumbling teeth, and traumatizing nights on the town, where strangers wondered why that hot girl was out with a dude who’d been punked in his smile by the tooth fairy.

NOTE: I have, to this day, recurring nightmares about my teeth falling out. I never once had them before the veneers. And no, I am not joking.

Anyway, he repaired it and, although I lived in fear of another breakdown in structural integrity, it stayed strong for almost 10 years. Then, one day, it cracked again. This time I was more prepared. Distraught yes, but prepared. I always knew this day would come. Sadly, I didn’t have enough money to do what was needed, which was just to get four totally new veneers. So I went and had the halves cemented together once again, figuring I’d get them all replaced when I had the extra cash. Then, a few months ago, a girl I was dating pointed out that I had a crack in my tooth. I said, “Yeah, that’s from years ago. You can see that little line down the middle,” and I pointed to the tooth. She looked confused for a second and said, “No, the other one.”

MOTHERFUCKER!

Now both of my front teeth were cracked. Ironically, this happened at the worst financial time in recent years. So, I did what any normal person would do in this situation…I ate around my two front teeth. Literally, I started cutting everything into bite sized pieces, even sandwiches. If I did bite into anything, I did it off to the side of my mouth. My theory was that, as long as I didn’t touch anything with those teeth, they’d stay intact. Then, one day I was on the phone with Big Kev and felt something weird going on in my mouth. I told him to hold on and reached up to see what was on my tongue. When I pulled my hand away, and saw a half of a tooth, I made one of the most interesting discoveries in the history of cosmetic dentistry….

Veneers break if you talk to black people.

I still have not figured out if my fake teeth are racist or just scared of blacks. I used to dye my hair but the color faded when I saw Asians so I went back to my natural shade. You can’t very well go around avoiding Asians. Particularly if they’re Asian girls wearing schoolgirl outfits.

Ok, so at this point I’ve got two cracked front teeth and no money. It’s a really good spot to be in and I’m very happy about it. Times like this make you resourceful. I’d considered getting some Lee Press-On Nails and fashioning them into choppers, but I couldn’t decide if I wanted the American Flag on them or the word “Hot” in glitter. I’m the MacGyver of dental repair. I once created braces, for a poor Cambodian child, out of a Kleenex and the “w” key from an old typewriter.

The aforementioned girl who had aforely mentioned the crack in my tooth, had found me a great dentist, Dr. Douglas Sam, over in Marina del Rey. He’s Asian but like I said, my hair is back to my natural color so there was no risk involved. Dr. Sam had my newly broken tooth glued back together in no time. But he also warned me, it’s time for those old school, George Washington wooden teeth to be replaced before they get termites. The were going to cost $1,050.00 per tooth, for a grand total of $4,200.00. It was time to pull myself up by my bootstraps, and do what any self respecting grown man would do in this situation.

I asked my dad for the money.

Hey, fuck you guys. My teeth are jacked and I’m broke. You think writing these blogs and doing an internet TV show is paying my bills? Granted, I’m ridiculously brilliant, hilariously funny and disgustingly handsome, but even that takes time to monetize. And who the hell is going to pay me to be smart, hot and funny if I have FUCKED UP TEETH? Nobody, that’s who. So I went to the man that’s always been there for me. The man that took my mothers virginity in the backseat of a car, impregnating a naive and impressionable teenage girl, and creating what would later become the genius that you know as Bad Ass Frank. As he has always been supportive of my endeavors, he ponied up the dough. It’s like he was just running a tad behind schedule on child support. Fact is, even as a grown man, I don’t worry about much. Cuz anytime I need something, I can just call him up and he always makes it happen.

Make it happen he did. Yesterday, I went in for the first of 3 steps in getting my brand new veneers. They didn’t actually do too much on this visit. I mean, all they did was give me about 30 shots in my mouth so that my face was numb from pretty much my forehead down to my neck, pry off teeth that have been glued to me for 10 years, grind on my nubs for 2 hours, yank my gums back, put big wads of string under them to create space, shove 3 different disgusting tasting trays of goop in there to create molds, make me drool on myself for an hour, grind on my nubs some more, then glue fake plastic temporary teeth on so I don’t look completely retarded for the next week. Once it was over and the novacaine wore off, it felt like I’d been hit in the mouth with a midget wearing a suit of armor.

Now that it’s over, I can’t wait for phase 2, the color matching. Then, the final step which is to rip off these fake plastic teeth, grind the numbs some more and put on my new veneers. It’s all very exciting. Maybe this time, with advances in dental technology, I’ll be able to chew harder types of food like Jello, and perhaps soup. But I’m not getting my hopes up, regardless of what Dr. Sam says.

I’m gonna go sip some lunch now and tap maniacally on my plastic temporary teeth. When I return, I’m going to post another blog if you’re interested. Dr. Sam was kind enough to take pictures through every step of the process yesterday.

Who wants to see gross pics of my dental work?????