3 Reasons Why We Should Remove Our Teeth: A Satirical Essay

A Satirical Essay on the Freedom of Dentures

Tak­en on 1.23.20

Intro:

Hel­lo read­ers, I hope this essay finds you well. I want­ed to dis­cuss an idea that’s per­co­lat­ed in my mind. If we imple­ment­ed this idea I’m about to share with y’all, it would change the land­scape of our soci­ety as we know it. I know change is scary, but as you read through my pre­sen­ta­tion, at least con­sid­er this idea with sin­cer­i­ty.

Now, how many of us dis­like brush­ing our teeth? I don’t mean you throw a fit or any­thing, but what I won­der is how many of us would choose not to brush our teeth if we could and not face reper­cus­sions. I assume most of us would take that deal. Yet, don’t we real­ize we have this pow­er already? And here in lies my idea and the­sis: I think we should remove our teeth as a soci­ety and replace them with den­tures.

Hold on a sec­ond, you might be say­ing. And yes, I under­stand this is a rather shock­ing claim. But I have three rea­sons why I think this would work. So I ask you to let that shock sub­side, and lis­ten to your curios­i­ty.


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Benefit #1: Time

They say time is mon­ey, and though a total teeth clean­ing rou­tine might take five min­utes at most, that’s five extra min­utes you could’ve stayed in bed or enjoyed your morn­ing cup of cof­fee. Or one less thing you have to do before throw­ing your­self amidst the cov­ers of your bed at night. Beyond clean­ing, think of the oth­er ways we would save time. If we use den­tures, then we’d take them out at night so those of us who grind our teeth in our sleep can wor­ry no more. That means no more tense jaw mus­cles and bet­ter sleep. For every­one else, think of nev­er hav­ing to expe­ri­ence a toothache again, or the extra free­dom to engage in some cheat food with­out wor­ry­ing about your teeth.

Benefit #2: Money

This might be the biggest sell­ing point. If our teeth no longer require upkeep, then no more den­tist trips or den­tal insur­ance. Or imag­ine a world where we don’t have to go through wis­dom teeth surgery. Not only does this give us more com­fort in life, but it would save a lot of mon­ey. We’d also no longer need to buy tooth­brush­es, floss, or mouth­wash. And this has greater impor­tance than those of us who aren’t lazy real­ize. So much atten­tion these days is on Big Tech or Big Phar­ma, and with good rea­son, but there’s one cap­i­tal­is­tic ene­my that has elud­ed us—Big Tooth. Replac­ing our teeth with den­tures is the most direct way we can take back not just our time and mon­ey, but our pow­er. Plus, we would no longer need to wor­ry about whether flu­o­ride is a threat.

Benefit #3: Culture

In this post-teeth world, there’s no envy of oth­ers’ genes or smiles because we all have the same set of pearls. There would be no going through braces as a kid. And for the Eng­lish, they gain alle­vi­a­tion from a cul­tur­al stereo­type. Have you ever met or seen some­one who relied on their genet­i­cal­ly gift­ed smile to get by a lit­tle eas­i­er? Well, no more. Now they’ll have to smile like the rest of us.

How­ev­er, I will be hon­est, we would lose one thing as a soci­ety. This being the tra­di­tion of the tooth fairy, which is a won­der­ful child­hood rite of pas­sage. Yet, the uni­verse blessed us with a movie in the 2000s with The Rock as the tooth fairy, and that gift alone bal­ances out the loss.

A Further Proposal: Shit-Talking Dentures

While I’m only skim­ming the pos­si­bil­i­ties of what the world would look like with­out organ­ic teeth, one of my favorites is estab­lish­ing a cul­tur­al prac­tice of hav­ing a sep­a­rate set of den­tures specif­i­cal­ly for shit-talk­ing. I see so many ben­e­fits in this. The first and most impor­tant being the removal of mis­com­mu­ni­ca­tion. And if that is one of the top rea­sons for dete­ri­o­rat­ed rela­tion­ships, then remov­ing that pos­si­bil­i­ty can only help.

Let me play out a hypo­thet­i­cal to show you what I mean. Say I got into it with some­body and put in my shit-talk­ing den­tures to let them know how I real­ly feel. Using those den­tures in that sit­u­a­tion reduces mis­com­mu­ni­ca­tion in a few ways. First off, this per­son would know they upset me because I had to put in my insult-teeth. And there’s no chance they can deflect it as sar­casm or tell me they didn’t think I was being seri­ous, because clear­ly I would’ve been if I had put in those teeth.

Sec­ond, it adds a flair of soap opera to our lives, and who among us hasn’t want­ed to deliv­er a wicked one-lin­er to a cer­tain some­body? And the third rea­son, whoever’s on the receiv­ing end can’t get upset. If shit-talk­ing den­tures became the sta­tus quo across soci­ety, and every­one could do it, then it’s no longer rude to shit talk it’s sim­ply the new stan­dard. And any­one who can’t put in their own pair of shit-talk­ing den­tures and deal with it is just dig­ging their own grave.

Conclusion:

Thank you for tak­ing the time to con­sid­er my pro­pos­al. I know it pic­tures a bold and bizarre world, but how much stranger is it com­pared to the rit­u­als and prac­tices we already do with our organ­ic teeth? Real­ly, I think the strange­ness would only be ini­tial, and beyond that we’d stride into a more accept­ing soci­ety. One with a lot more smiles.


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