Terrible Mother: Thing Three lost a tooth today.

Friend Omega*: Yeah?

Terrible Mother: Yeah. So she was all excited about the Tooth Fairy.

Friend Omega: Oh God. Tell me you don't do the Tooth Fairy thing.

Terrible Mother: Of course I do. Why?

Friend Omega: You tell her that some mutant fairy breaks into her room and steals her body parts? It's awful.

Terrible Mother: Body parts? It's just a tooth!

Friend Omega: What, does she hang out at the leper colony after hours?

Terrible Mother: Do they even still have leper colonies? Who has leper colonies any more?

Friend Omega: It's disgusting, TM. I mean, where did this story even come from?

Terrible Mother: When Thing One was little, she asked me what the Tooth Fairy did with the teeth. And I was a little caught off guard, so I made something up.

Friend Omega: What did you say?

Terrible Mother: I said she built her house with them.

Friend Omega: THAT'S HORRIBLE!

Terrible Mother: What was I supposed to say? I made up more about it. How she used the canines for fence posts.

Friend Omega: This is awful. Some fairy thing is going to break into my house and steal my body parts.

(pause)

And how do you even assign monetary value to the tooth? Do you set a market price with other parents? Do you have to check with Billy's dad to see if he gets a dollar a molar?

Terrible Mother: My kids all get a dollar a tooth.

Friend Omega: A dollar a tooth! That's insane!

Terrible Mother: Inflation, Omega. Inflation.

Friend Omega: If my parents had given me a dollar a tooth, I'd have knocked out all my teeth!

Terrible Mother: That's because you have to over-do everything.

Friend Omega: A dollar a tooth! I might just do it right now to see what happens!

*tm

 *One of the first and only friends of the Terrible Mother cast to name himself.  And one of my oldest, dearest friends.