I spent many years transcribing messages from the tooth fairies, and so I'd like to tell you about them, and how their role is misunderstood. Tooth fairies are hard to perceive, and are very small, roughly on the scale of the bacteria that live in the mouth anyway. They do not write notes - they are far too small - but they can dictate them indirectly, just as oral bacteria can also change one's behavior. Nor do they have a store of cash to dole out as a kind of dental insurance for lost teeth. That's clearly done by custodial guardians, for reasons of establishing the idea of insurance!
Tooth fairies also do not move on once all the primary teeth have been lost, they make their presence known later in life. This is due to a fundamental misunderstanding about tooth fairies: they are not there to remove the lost teeth and compensate for them, they are in fact nourishers and gardeners of the erupting adult teeth. They interact with the stem cells in the jaw and cause the new teeth to grow and push out the previous set. They are there for wisdom teeth, long after the primaries have been replaced. These fairies continue their work through the movement of teeth throughout one's life, encouraging and guiding dental growth and mourning enamel loss.
In my family's case, tooth fairies communicated as three personalities: Norman, Fancy, and Flossie. Norman was kind of playful, if dull witted, but enjoyed salvaging lost baby teeth to use as furniture. Fancy was often concerned about how the new teeth would grow and arrange themselves as they grew. Flossie was an advocate for active dental hygiene. The three of them would take turns dictating letters to me, which I wrote down on torn, fan-folded strips of paper, in ink using a flat nibbed pen. When the children noted the messages were in my handwriting, I rightly claimed the fairies were much too small and illiterate to write, but I could transcribe their thoughts and conversations. At the bottom, as encouragement, I'd attach a coin from tooth fairyland, which naturally was one "fare", formerly used by the NYC subway system. When these ran out, I'd use the tiny coins of Denmark or small denominations from defunct Eastern European countries. The notes were secreted in the usual way, and sometimes not found for a day or so.
In my family's case, tooth fairies communicated as three personalities: Norman, Fancy, and Flossie. Norman was kind of playful, if dull witted, but enjoyed salvaging lost baby teeth to use as furniture. Fancy was often concerned about how the new teeth would grow and arrange themselves as they grew. Flossie was an advocate for active dental hygiene. The three of them would take turns dictating letters to me, which I wrote down on torn, fan-folded strips of paper, in ink using a flat nibbed pen. When the children noted the messages were in my handwriting, I rightly claimed the fairies were much too small and illiterate to write, but I could transcribe their thoughts and conversations. At the bottom, as encouragement, I'd attach a coin from tooth fairyland, which naturally was one "fare", formerly used by the NYC subway system. When these ran out, I'd use the tiny coins of Denmark or small denominations from defunct Eastern European countries. The notes were secreted in the usual way, and sometimes not found for a day or so.
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