Upon losing his first tooth, Jared Adams, 7, was consoled by his father, John Adams, who calmly explained to him that losing one’s baby teeth was a natural part of growing up, and that he would trade his son’s teeth for money– a perfectly ordinary business transaction conducted with a mysterious fairy who can sense when a child’s tooth has fallen, and looks for it under their pillows, replacing it with a single gold coin, generally valued at around 25 cents.

Being a curious and skeptical child, Jared asked his father what use his baby teeth could provide, to which his father provided many hypotheses. Having never actually questioned the purpose of these baby teeth, nor had he followed the Tooth Fairy to her illicit and cavernous lair, he began to improvise. “Perhaps she needs the DNA so that she may conduct experiments in cloning,” he said to his son, at a loss. “Or maybe,” he said, noticing that his son did not find the idea of having his DNA sold for the purposes of cloning, “She just likes regarding her many rows of teeth, lined on rows of shelves, and labeled accordingly.”

“Why would she exchange money for my goods? Aren’t fairies generally a sly and crafty folk, stealing and plundering without a single care for the propriety established in our human realm?” he persisted, being the little brat that he is.

“But you see,” said Adams, “The Tooth Fairy is the fairy equivalent of a dentist, and thus, while she is a wily and plunderous creature, she still leads a life of sinister convention.”

At this, Jared acquiesced. “So you mean to say if I do not hand over my teeth to her, I shall feel her wrath?” His father stammered, wondering how he had failed as a parent and managed to raise such an obnoxiously inquisitive child. “I can live with that,” said Jared.

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