Brace Case

People do a lot of stupid things that others, who try to copy people they think are hip, pass for cool and start copying, thinking it’s the trend. They just accept it as the "in" thing since the "in" crowd is doing it. But they don’t take a step back and see how cheesy or corny what they’re doing is.

That’s what this column will do, hit those trends and expose what they really are. When it’s bad, you gotta point it out, and there’s a lot to point out. This will probably get me killed. Or there will at least be violent attacks from the people that I’m writing about. Then again, I may be overestimating them, considering that the only language these people can read and comprehend at an operationally efficient level is text language. Yup, somebody’s got to point out these bad trends regardless of the risk of bodily harm. Besides there’s the hope that I can play with the words enough they won’t be able to discern the meanings since I’m not using certain terms like: I mean, you know, it’s like, actually, and parang. Yes, the inefficient use of similes he freaks apply to their language, rather than using words "like" and parang to pepper their speech with figurative language, they use these words as a sauce, drowning way the meanings of the things they say, if they mean anything at all.

But then I’ getting ahead of myself. That’s good material for next month’s bashing. Now to get to this month’s bad fad.

I’ll start off with the fad that is braces. What should be a procedure for correcting teeth has become an "in" thing for some queer reason. An orthodontist jams metal into your mouth to straighten out the teethy. That’s a crude but efficient description of the procedure. But it’s not the procedure that’s the fad., rather the showing off of the braces that calls attention.

When I was studying in the States, we’d make fun of the poor schmuck who had the metal wires hanging out of his mouth and jutting through his gums. He had the misfortune of having crooked teeth, and because of that he had to wear those things, along with avoiding certain foods and having spittle dribbling out of his mouth when he talked. Not only was he the butt of a lot of practical jokes, but he couldn’t play on the sports teams. And the worst part of it was that the opposite sex would be reluctant to make out with the person wearing braces because we’d heard stories of people having their gums cut in that kind of situation.

I remember once in eighth grade there was a couple in my class who both had braces. We had a vacant period and they thought of making the most of the free time, so they started making out. Around the middle of the periods we heard some muffled talking and that sounded like pleas for help. In the course of their escapades, their braces had gotten stuck together, some of the wires getting tangled up. Their gums were cut up and they both got some readjusting, not just from the orthodontists, after the incident.

Considering the situation and the pain and inconvenience that comes along with it, you’d think people here would feel the same way about braces. But, no, in fact some see it as a sort of status symbol to show off.

Go figure why these people take every chance they get to show off those chomper-clamping bars. They just go around, opening their mouths, hoping that some light will bounce off and attract attention to their braces, which they think are cool because they’re expensive.

Think about it, getting is an outright admission that you have ugly, crooked teeth. So, then, if you go around showing them off, it’s the equivalent of announcing to people, "Hey, check it out, I got really bad teeth!"

Yes, fine, those pretentious people will be thinking, "Look at me, even if I have bad teeth, I have the money to get them fixed." Okay, but they still have bad teeth.

Then there are even worse fad victims. I’ve seen people with perfect teeth…not a problem. But, they go and get retainers, just so that they can look cool. What’s with that? There’s nothing wrong with your teeth but your putting up with retainers, which cause discomfort to your mouth, just because that’s what looks cool.

The problem isn’t having braces. In fact, its good people want to have nice teeth. The thing is showing it off. It’s not cool, in fact it’s a little disgusting since most of these show-offs forget to clean their braces out really well and wind up nursing a sort of cheese-like substance hanging off the metal.

I had a high school classmate who insisted on flashing the braces at all possible opportunities. It was irritating enough, but adding to that conceitedness of having braces, was the repelling and repulsive fact that he was greatly lacking in personal hygiene training. The build-up was so bad he could have kept a Pizza Hut branch running with his cheese for about a week. Remembering that makes the braces fad for me a cheesy situation, both figuratively and literally.