Once Upon a Time...

There was a teenager named Angela.

Angela was a pretty regular teenager, with all the good and bad things that went along with it. She could laugh at the High Schoolers, but her speech habits sometimes lacked a good vocabulary. She got to enter all the teen homeschool activities, but she had to have braces.

In fact, when Angela was younger, she had horrible teeth. Something had gone wrong and half the time her adult teeth would grow up behind her baby teeth, or sideways in between two, or they'd jut out at the wrong angle.
Angela spent a lot of time at the dentist's office having teeth pulled.

By the time that Angela was 12, she had truly atrocious teeth, so her mother took her to the orthodontist.
At the time, Angela didn't know what the deal was, so she went along reluctantly, trying not to think about orthodontists. (See, Angela's grandmother wanted Angela to be an orthodontist, so whenever Angela thought about them, she shuddered at the thought of those discussions she had had with her grandma.)

But although Angela couldn't tell it at the time, she really did have horrible teeth.
It was no surprise when the orthodontist said she needed braces. Angela sort of shrugged and walked away, though, because her mom said that braces hurt far less than they did when she had been a teen.

So, that fall, the orthodontist put the braces on Angela's teeth.

Her mother lied. The braces hurt.

The next two years went along pretty fast, what with school and camp, and everything.
Half the time, Angela forgot she even had braces.

But then came the fateful orthodontist appointment.

Angela walked into the office, and sat down, until someone called her back. She sat down and opened her mouth. Smiled about five times, open her closed her mouth several times more, brushed her teeth, and sat back down on that weird chair that dentists and orthodontists have.

And then the orthodontist came in.
Taking a look at her mouth, her proclaimed the news she had been longing to hear for two years.

"You get your braces off next time. Come back in four weeks."