Is the Tooth Fairy Real?: A Fable
Harriet told her little brother Dan that there was no Tooth Fairy; it was their parents who put the money under the pillow.
Dan refused to believe Harriet. He knew there was a Tooth Fairy. Every time he put a tooth under his pillow, there was money there the next morning. And all his friends said the Tooth Fairy brought them money too. And it couldn't be Mom and Dad because he'd wake up if they came in the room and lifted his pillow. Anyway, Mom and Dad said there was a Tooth Fairy, and they wouldn't lie.
Harriet asked him how he thought the Tooth Fairy found out about lost teeth, how she got into the house, where she got the money from, and what she did with the teeth. Dan said he didn't know, but wasn't it a wonderful mystery? Harriet pointed out that older kids all eventually stopped believing in the Tooth Fairy. Dan said that only proved that the Tooth Fairy would only bring money to those who still believed in her.
Harriet got several neighborhood kids to help test whether the Tooth Fairy would appear if the parents didn't know a tooth had been lost. It turned out that every time the parents knew about the tooth, there would be money under the pillow the next morning, and every time the parents didn't know about the tooth, there would be no money, Dan said the Tooth Fairy was just refusing to cooperate in those cases, because she wouldn't bring money if she knew she was being tested.
Harriet led Dan into their parents' bedroom, opened a dresser drawer, and showed him a box containing all of Harriet's and Dan's baby teeth neatly labeled and dated. She said that was proof their parents were taking the teeth and leaving the money. Dan said it was no such thing; the Tooth Fairy probably passed the teeth on to parents for keepsakes, or maybe she sold teeth to parents to raise the money she put under the pillows. Hey, yeah, that would explain the fingerprints!
Harriet and Dan confronted their parents, who admitted they had been taking the teeth and leaving the money under the pillow. Dan said either they were lying before or they're lying now, and they're probably lying now. Why trust what anyone says? He was just going to ignore everything except what he knew the tooth-under-the-pillow thing worked. The Tooth Fairy was real.
Harriet screamed in frustration and tore all her hair out. She left it under her pillow. It was still there in the morning.
Harriet Hall is a retired physician who lives in Puyallup, Washington, and writes about alternative medicine and pseudoscience.
This is her fourth article for SKEPTICAL INQUIRER. E-mail: harriet.hall@comcast.net.
COPYRIGHT 2006 Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal
Further enlightening reading: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2843/is_3_30/ai_n16418742
(It explains a LOT!!!)
