If you have the time and you’re at all interested in reading the emotional journey of a girl who once lost her teeth in an oh-so-tragic incident and how it helped her find her path, whether you’re a potential employer or not, I urge you to continue reading.
There I was, standing on the corner of two streets I wish I could tell you the name of, when I accepted a bite of a Ritter’s chocolate bar regardless of my visceral aversion to sweets. It was offered from a classmate who I’d never met, but only admired in passing on campus. She was wearing a vintage outfit (one of those fits that’s perfectly mismatched and one-of-a-kind) paired with a velvet voice, and therefore someone whom I was desperate to be friends with. Saying no put me at risk of seeming like one of those pretentious, “I don’t eat sweets because they don’t work with my 21 year-old metabolism” types, whether a chocolate bar is to me what a bowl of expired mayonnaise and gooey turkey liver is to the average person or not.
“Mmm. Are thoth peanuths?” I murmured through a mouthful of a dissolving chocolate bar with chunks of something unidentifiable scattered throughout. As the words left my mouth with a newfound lisp, I knew that the crunch was not, in fact, perfectly toasted peanuts mixed into the milky chocolate bar, but instead my temporary two front teeth that I was destroying more and more with each bite. Teeth that, might I add, were so yellow that it seemed as if I was doing some sort of social experiment on bullying or the importance of flossing or something. Yellow or not, I desperately needed them in place to cover the minuscule rotting fangs that were hiding underneath while my permanent fake teeth were being prepared in a lab somewhere far, far away (36 minutes from Boulder, ~42 with traffic). No one told me that veneers entailed painfully shaving your two front teeth down to a shape no different than a cat's claw.
Bear in mind, this was no ordinary time to lose your two front teeth. No ordinary time at all. This was my first big break! CU Boulder had flown a group of eight Pencil winners out to New York City to attend the One Club for Creativity’s biggest event for students, The Young Ones Awards Ceremony. This fiasco occurred right before not only this event, but the evening before two days packed full of tours of some of New York’s top agencies, agencies where I was dying to get my foot in the door regardless of my bleak portfolio and lack of experience.
Alas, I arrived at the first tour afraid to open my mouth - not for fear of exposing my minuscule fangs where my front teeth once stood, but in an attempt to hide the Walgreen’s brand stark-white loose filling repair (though it was more like Play-Doh) that I had formed a brick of two front teeth out of.
So there I was, hiding in the bathroom of R/GA with a girl I’d never met who’d ducked away to hit her Juul, re-molding my clay front teeth that dissolved anytime I so much as introduced myself. I exited to see my teacher outside, waiting to use the single restroom after us. “Don’t mind me,” I nervously spewed. “Just fixing my fake teeth.”
“Thank God you said something. I was wondering how I got through an entire semester without noticing those bad boys.”
“Fair enough,” I responded, blushing, seen as my teacher was a mere 4 years older than me and an impeccable copywriter. Is it inappropriate to say he was good looking? Who am I asking anyway.
The tours went on, and I found that not being able to open my mouth was almost a blessing. I tend to nervous talk. And comfortable talk. We get it, I’m a talker.
And then came the awards ceremony.
“Where do we walk?” I frantically asked my partner under my breath as the announcer prefaced the awards. I’m notoriously stage-presentation-camera shy. “Who cares,” she replied, “We’ll follow by example.” The announcer proceeded. “And first up with a silver pencil from Avery Dennison for M_Use Mobile, Blair Astrop and Graciela Roberson.” You’re kidding me. I followed her lead, beet red in the outfit I had pulled together, a piece from each of my five roommates’ closets.
I stood on the “X” marked in tape on stage and as I flashed a sad-looking toothless smile, I realized that teeth or no teeth, I’m not getting hired without a riveting about page.