Rites of Passage

I was sitting at Noodles, reading a book and minding my own business when a lady and a little girl sat at the next table. There had to be ten other tables available, but I tried not to roll my eyes at them.

Girl was whining, lady was ignoring her and looking at her phone. I think they had just come from one of those Building a Teddy Bear stores.

Suddenly, the girls says, "It came out!!"

I look at her. She is holding a bloody napkin. She had just lost a tooth.

There was a time when I would have been really grossed out. But then she is saying that she has lost "four on top and four on the bottom". And I am trying to gauge how old she is, and how long before my nephew starts losing teeth. And what is the Tooth Fairy's going rate these days?

Then she says, "It feels very awkward in my mouth." And I wonder how old I was when I started using words like "awkward" - because I am pretty sure it was high school.

My brother and sister in law are expecting their daughter in a few weeks and I think I have a pretty good handle on the aunt thing. I'm still not sure I can bring myself to build teddy bears.