Lament on a Lost Tooth

Humor Column
by Tim Mollen
June 2, 2004

Lament on a Lost Tooth

I miss you tooth.
My tongue doth too.
When you were looth,
It wiggled you.

–  Anne Langevin

Items submitted for publication in a newspaper should be:  (1) newsworthy, (2) timely and (3) not based on cute things said by family members of the writer.  I happily eschew these professional values to bring you this happy little poem my mother wrote in the 1960s.

All those years ago, Binghamton native Anne Langevin (now Mollen) submitted her humble little stanza to The Atlantic Monthly for publication.  They replied with a polite, but shortsighted, no.  What were they thinking?  They could have published the world’s next Twas the Night Before Christmas.  As her youngest son, I am here to right that ancient wrong.

I submit that this piece of rhyme has more literary merit than “Rub-a-dub-dub, three men in a tub.”  How did that one catch on?   Was there a time when everyone could identify with – well, that?!  Is a crowded piece of porcelain really the place for the rubbing of dub-dubs?  I am also at a loss to explain how the crucible of cultural Darwinism ensured the survival of “This little piggy went to market.”  My left third toe still expresses confusion about being labeled as a pig that eats roast beef.  You try to live that one down in the sneaker with the other guys.  Or how about “Ring around the rosie; Pocket full of posies; Ashes, ashes; We all fall down.”  That delightful piece is about the unpleasant, initial symptoms and even more unpleasant, ultimate results of the black plague.  Is that what we want to say to our children as we tuck them into bed at night?  “Life is about unmitigated horror and death, little one.  Nighty-night!”

The old rhymes don’t hold up any more.  We need a new one.

Clip my mom’s poem out.  Put it on your refrigerator.  Mail and e-mail it to your friends.  Tell them they will be hit by a really mobile home if they don’t forward it to all their friends within two days.  Most importantly, memorize this simple bit of verse, so you can say it to your kids and grandkids when they lose a tooth.  You will be able to say you were among the first to spread this elegant piece of American folklore.

I’m not saying all this just because my mommy wrote it.  OK, maybe I am.  But you think it’s cute, too, tough guy.

© 2004 Tim Mollen

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