Many children normally lose their first tooth around the age of six, but I was an exception, for I lost my first tooth at an earlier age. Unlike others, my tooth did not fall out by natural causes. Instead it was forced out by strange means.

The day started like every usual day, nothing out of the ordinary occurred or so I thought. After lunch, the craving for chocolate milk became overwhelming; I needed chocolate! The cap was usually easy to open but today it stuck to the bottle like glue and gripped the bottle with all its might. I tried everything to open it, but all else failed. There was one thing I had not tried one thing and that was to pry the top off with my teeth, a seemingly smart and harmless idea to a four year old.

The few minutes I took trying to open the cap seemed like hours. Soon I heard a satisfactory pop, not the pop of a cap but a pop unknown to me. Soon afterwards, the taste of blood slowly seeped into my mouth. Along with the taste of blood, I also felt an unfamiliar square ridged object in my mouth. After I gave up guessing, I spat the object out and to my surprise I found my front tooth in my hands.

Feeling the new hole in my mouth, I could not help but smile. At that moment, my mom happened to look down and noticed the shiny white object in my hand. The first words out of my mom's mouth were "Did you fall down"" and when I shook my head "no." She asked, "Did you run into something"" Once again I shook my head "no." "Then what happened"," she asked. I smiled and looked at the chocolate syrup bottle. After I explained what happened, she looked at me with amusement.

I did not get my chocolate milk that day but I did get salt water to rinse my mouth and stop the bleeding. People should never use their teeth to pry open items; as for me, I learned my lesson never to use my teeth to pry open objects.