Lawson Smith

Hey my name is Lawson, and I have a titanium tooth. My passion for food, and lots of it, was evident from a very young age. According to my mom,”Lawson ate faster than the garbage disposal.” So, as you can imagine, I was the favorite to win the 6th grade pie eating contest at the fall festival by a landslide. As the teacher counted down, and shouted for us to begin, I was so filled with adrenaline that I smashed my face into the pie full force. I continued eating, and ultimately won the competition. But, as I lifted my head from the table, something didn’t feel right. Where my right, front tooth had been before the contest, I was now pushing my tongue through my smile without resistance. After multiple oral procedures, and many dentist appointments they finally managed to replace the missing tooth with a titanium alloy fake. However, this was not enough to overcome the insecurity I felt about the accident. I was already an overweight, awkward middle schooler, and even though the tooth rarely went noticed, I knew it was there. I could always see the how it was just slightly more opaque than the others, or how it wasn’t quite as white. So, I stopped smiling. For years I refused to smile for pictures, because of the insecurity I felt. Then, as we all do, I began to grow out of the middle school ideology of actually caring what people think of me, and began to smile, not because I made a conscious effort to, but because I was genuinely more happy with myself. Today, you can rarely catch me without a smile on my face.