Annemarie Williams--The Retainer

It’s funny how easy spying an object from our childhood can bring back memories of friendships and their significance during those awkward periods of growing up. In the lower corner of my medicine cabinet, I spied its case. Its color is a bright forest green. The case is plastic and shaped like a half-moon with a white sticker on it that says if found call Annemarie Williams at 927-7868. Inside the case is my retainer – a pinkish-salmon colored plastic mouth piece that fits inside the roof of my mouth. The pink part of the retainer has an oval shaped metal wire around it with little hooks that jut upward along the sides. There are funny ridges on the pink part that stick to roof of your mouth. I remember feeling so excited at the thought of getting my braces off in high school. I looked forward to feeling my teeth again and not having all sorts of food get stuck in my braces like popcorn, peanuts and caramel. Then I found out that I had to wear a retainer for at least a year after I got my braces off to keep my teeth from moving back. What a bummer!

Wearing my retainer brought with it new reasons to be embarrassed during my already self-conscious high school years. I remember putting it in and feeling it with my tongue and clicking it in place against my teeth. It always felt so weird, I would frequently play with it during class with my tongue as I got used to it. If I skipped wearing it for a few days it would be tight on my teeth and hurt when I put it back on from lack of wearing it. The most disgusting part of wearing my retainer was taking it out after wearing it for a while before eating at school or home. I learned to perfect the quickest and most surreptitious way of turning slightly, taking it out and hiding it in a napkin whilst my saliva was dripping off it. However, my biggest problem with wearing my retainer was taking it out and forgetting where I put it. It became a daily battle for me to try to find and locate my retainer. I’ll never forget the time that I hid the retainer too well in my napkin and tossed it away at school in the outside garbage cans after my lunch one Friday. At the time I wasn’t sure where I lost it but I had a hunch that I accidentally threw it away after lunch outside with my best friend, Michelle.

My best friend Michelle had a retainer first and she got braces first. I remember when she got her braces off and showed me her new retainer. I had lunch with my best friend, Michelle at school every day. She was the one constant in the chaotic atmosphere that is high school. We met in third grade playing basketball and were best friends ever since. Every Friday night we went out to pizza at Pizza Haven and a movie throughout our school days. She and I were on the same softball team together. She played catcher and I was in the outfield. Even though we didn’t have all the same classes we always met for lunch and talked about our day, planned our weekend, movies we wanted to see, the Seattle Super Sonics, and whatever else that was going on. In the summer we would always take these long bike riding, junk food, adventures to our favorite park by the ocean, Dash Point.

It was Friday, when I got home after school, that I first noticed my retainer was missing. I tried not to panic because I was pretty sure that I threw it away after eating lunch at school with my best friend Michelle. Trying not to stress out, I called my best friend Michelle. Mortified at the thought of looking through the garbage at school all by myself on a Saturday morning, I somehow managed to talk my best friend Michelle into helping me look for my lost retainer. I’m pretty sure her mom made her help me though, because, I had to call twice and try and explain it to her why I needed her help. I did hear her talking to her mom trying to explain why I was calling. And then she finally agreed to meet me at the school on Saturday morning to look through the garbage for my retainer. I didn’t want to tell my parents yet, because I didn’t want to get in trouble. I just had to pray that I could find it in the garbage at school on Saturday morning. But what if the garbage was picked up Friday after school?! Ugh! I really prayed that the garbage wasn’t picked up on Friday after school! I’d be doomed!

It seemed like Saturday morning would never come! I practically ran all the way to school to meet my friend Michelle at the agreed upon time. The first thing I noticed was that the garbage was still in the outdoor garbage cans! I’m saved! I know my retainer is in one of those garbage cans somewhere! But when I saw Michelle, she looked rather grumpy and embarrassed about meeting me at school on Saturday morning to look through the garbage for my retainer. I was so happy not to look through the garbage by myself that I didn’t pay attention to her grumpy mood. I couldn’t lose my retainer – it would cost too much to replace and I didn’t want to have to go through the process of telling my parents and getting yelled at for my stupidity. So, there we were on a cold and cloudy Saturday morning looking through the large garbage cans at school, sorting through all the garbage. Yuck! We took the lid off of the most likely garbage can and slowly started our search. Fortunately, I found my lunch sack right away and neatly inside was a napkin with my now dry pink retainer waiting to be reclaimed! We had found it! Disaster was averted for the moment and my friend Michelle came to my aid like only a best friend would…Thank you Michelle for being my best friend through it all and I declare that I owe you one day of dumpster diving anytime and anyplace!

~The End~

Annemarie Williams, lives in Seattle, Washington and works as an advisor at a local community college. In her spare time she enjoys all the beauty of the region with walks, hikes and camping with family and friends.