All I Want for Christmas...

Andria Domingos
Professor Debra Lilli
English 1010 T R 9AM – 12:10
27 May 2013

All I want for Christmas… It happened when I was 11 years old, at 8:41 pm around the month of May. My family and I live in the middle of nowhere Rehoboth MA, at the time we owned a camper full of chickens. One night my mom asked my older brother, who was 13 at the time, to go lock up the chicken coop, but of course being the lazy and stubborn person that he is he wouldn’t go unless I went with him. Little did I know this trip to the back of my house would change my life for ever. Even though I had a bad feeling about going in the middle of the woods at night, I went anyways. As my brother and I were getting ready to head out the door my mom handed us my dads’ scuba diving flashlight, which was very big and bulky. I loathed going outside at night. It gets so dark and creepily quiet that it felt like something was there watching our every move. Then all I could think of was the scene from “Beauty and the Beast” where Belle gets scared in the woods and a pack of wolves surround her. The distance from my back door to the chicken coop was about 200 feet so I was trying to move as quickly as I could. I did not want to be out there for longer then I had to. Finally we made it to the chicken coop. We agreed that I would close the front door, then at the same time he would close the back door. So when I finished before him I decided to go around the chicken coop and meet him in the back since he had the flashlight. Instead of calling out my name to see where I was like a normal, smart person would do. He just decided to swing the flashlight over his head, and then all I could remember was seeing a sudden flash from the impact of him swinging the flashlight at my mouth. It all seemed to happen so fast, I did not cry but I just stood there in shock with my hands cupped under my mouth while blood was gushing out not able to process what had just happened. While my brother was standing next to me apologizing like his life depended on it. I started to move my tongue to feel around my mouth, I felt a space where there should have been my two front teeth. One tooth was dangling but fell out once I touched it with my tongue. I had no recollection to where my other tooth was. Then my brother told me to run to my mom while he tried to find the other tooth. As I ran the 200 feet back to my house I screamed the whole way to get my moms attention. I made my way into the kitchen and my mom went ballistic as she saw my mouth covered in blood and my hands still frozen together under my mouth also covered in blood still holding onto my tooth. She helped me get cleaned up then after I told her what happened, she called the dentist. While she was on the phone they told her to save my tooth put it in milk and it will be good for 30 minutes but if you do not have milk put it in water, it will be good for 20 minutes. The problem with that is my dentist’s office was about 35 to 40 minutes away. Then she called my grandma and she came over to help look for my tooth. When we saw the dentist he examined my gums, then the tooth and said that since the tooth had fallen on the ground there is a lot of dirt on it. He could try to scrape some of it off but then he risks scraping some of the tooth off and it had already been about 45 minutes, so it was a little late to try to save the tooth. It was at that moment when I realized I would be wishing for my two front teeth for Christmas for the rest of my life.