My Terrible Mouth Accident

VOICEMAIL: This is Pablo. Leave a message. HENRY: Oh, hey, Pablo, it's Henry. Listen, I'm going through one of those existential crises right now and I could really use a legitimizing second opinion. Um, how do we still have a job? If no one in this timeline has a

mouth

, then why exactly are tooth fairies needed? And furthermore, doesn't this make it very difficult to address any

mouth

-related topic in this world? I just do not know! Seems like a big oversight on the creator's part! Anyway, call me. Please. Bye bye. REBECCA: Hello, my geeks and people, my explainers and entertainers, my little lallies!

Rebecca Parham here! You’ve read the title, you know what we’re talking about, and I bet you’re all saying to yourself, “Oh, Becca is in a real pickle right now! How is she going to tell a story about her mouth when she doesn't have one? “Heh heh heh heh.” Mute. Chill out! I have this. There you go. Problem solved. Every time I have to show you a mouth, it's Post-Its to the rescue! GINGER: Wow! REBECCA: Okay, enough of that! Let's go. Life-altering wounds that mark us physically and emotionally. Yes, they make great stories, don't they?

And don't we love telling you about it? BOY: Friend, do you want to see my scar? He was attacked by a mountain lion; I fought it with my own hands! MOM: That's his appendectomy scar! CHILD: Mom! REBECCA: Honestly, I've been pretty lucky. I haven't been hurt many times in my life. I mean, my dad

accident

ally pulled my arm out of the socket when he was six. I got hit in the face with a softball when I was in high school and had dark circles under my eyes for a week. I slipped on the water in high school and tore cartilage in my knee.

A girl at the theater dropped a heavy piece on my foot and I had to do the rest of the shows with only one shoe on. I broke my toe by hitting it on a platform while trying to get off stage. You know, maybe I'm more

accident

prone than I thought. I wonder how much football helmets cost. But the big injury story that I always tell people happened when I was very young and it has to do with... my teeth. I personally don't remember it at all, but my sister says she has a traumatizingly clear memory of it.

That and, of course, my parents were there for it. Actual content warning here: this story may get a little graphic. As you know me, I've never been averse to a little blood...or a gallon or two. For the brave souls still watching, let's get this show on! When he was about three years old, Dad wanted to build a play fort in the backyard for me and my sister. He called a family friend, who turned out to be a carpenter, so they could draw up some plans and discuss what size he should be and where to put him.

Mom wasn't home at the time, so to keep an eye on me and my sister, Dad let us run around the backyard while he and the carpenter talked about it. So in our backyard we had a porch, and REBECCA: By Southern law, if you have a porch, you have to have a swing. REBECCA: We did it, although it wasn't very good. Dad kept a close eye on us, but as any father will tell you, the worst things always happen when you turn your back for a moment. And when Dad wasn't looking, I managed to get on this porch swing.

I stood on it and I guess in my three-year-old mind I thought I was on one of those playground spring horses, so I started swinging it back and forth. And apparently, he wasn't holding back. Your girl was chasing bandits somewhere in the Wild West; I don't know. Remember how I said this wasn't a very good porch swing? Well, good porch swings are designed so that they cannot tip over. REBECCA: But this one, well... YOUNG REBECCA: Wow! ♪ Hail Mary ♪ Nooooooooo! ... REBECCA: Dad heard my screams and ran in panic. He picked me up off the ground and there was nothing but blood.

I had bitten my upper lip, which left me with this beautiful little scar later, and the force of the fall had pushed my front teeth back and up into my head. Without a moment to waste, Dad grabbed Rachel and me, threw us into the back of the car, and sped off toward the hospital. Rachel sat next to me the entire ride, holding my head back so she wouldn't bleed all over. And since she was only five years old, she was naturally crazy. And Dad was even more distraught, feeling like the worst father in the world. But as he silently panicked, he suddenly heard from the back seat: YOUNG REBECCA: ♪ Old MacDonald had a farm.

Ee i ee i o. ♪ ♪ And on this farm, he had a cow. Ee i ee i o. ♪... REBECCA: Well, I guess that's what you call more bounce than a kickball. Although I don't think Dad liked the musical number. When we got to the hospital, the doctors ended up having to push my teeth back into their original position, but they were practically destroyed. Oh, and when Mom got to the hospital, she said Dad was covered in blood and looked like he'd lost a fight with an angry cat. Ah, poor dad. There was nothing else the doctors could do at the hospital, but we still had to wait two weeks for it to heal before we could see a dentist.

And what the dentist ended up having to do was give a root canal to my two front teeth and then fill it with a compound so that it would stay in my head until my permanent teeth were ready to come in. In fact, I'm very glad I don't remember any of this. I'm already crazy enough on the membrane as it is. Who knows how bad I would be today if I had to carry this childhood trauma with me? The whole ordeal had basically killed my two front teeth and they turned...yellow. Additionally, the next tooth needed a metal half crown on the back.

And since the teeth are translucent, that made the tooth appear green. So yes, for the next few years of my childhood, I walked around with yellow and green teeth. Just look at this raised mouth of mine. I think I had these teeth until I was six or seven years old. And as you can imagine, such a blow to the face not only ruined my baby teeth, but also left my permanent teeth crooked. In fact, when I went to the orthodontist to get braces in high school, she discovered that she had four permanent teeth that were supposed to come in, but they were stuck in my gums.

I had to pull my teeth out so they could come out. My mouth was a mess! Fortunately, I think I finally have these chewers under control. They're not perfect, but who could blame them after going through so much misery? It's okay, teeth, you're good enough. That's why I never encourage you. And for those of you wondering, yes, my dad finally built that play fort. I thought he'd think twice before letting his clumsy daughter take high places, but hey, none of the Parham kids ever fell off that fort. I guess I've set a good example of what not to do.

Did you hear that, mom? Your daughter is a pioneer. Hey explainers, I just want to thank Eddie Bowley for voicing him as the Tooth Fairy in the opening sketch. I'll leave a link to his channel in the description. I really love his stuff, so go see it. I also want to give a huge shout out to my old friend Megan Maher for storyboarding a segment of this video. I'm very excited about this. She will periodically appear in videos and help me. We've been talking about it since February and it's finally become a reality. And I hope this means I'll be able to send you more videos more frequently.

Anyway, explainers, thank you so much for tuning in, but now I can't listen anymore. Bye bye!