The real problem, of course, is that braces all but destroy your ability to enjoy a decent meal. The entire dental industry is anti-food, and I’m sure there’s some crack dentist somewhere who’s gonna write me a letter and tell me that eating a healthy diet will make my teeth whiter or some shit, but you can save the ink, buddy, because the teeth I have left are perfectly fine without your meddling and I know you just want to stop me from eating delicious caramels. I remain convinced that they only make you answer one question when you want to be a dentist, and that question is: “Will you make people feel like absolute garbage for everything they eat?” And if you answer yes—congratulations, you’re a dentist. It’s like every time I ever go to the dentist, all he can talk about is every meal he finds in between my molars. He’s always like, “Hey pal, looks like you missed a whole bunch of food in here while you were flossing.” And I’m always like, “Joke’s on you, friend. I’ve never flossed even once in my whole life.”

But when I was little, my crack dentist wasn’t happy enough telling me passive-aggressively to brush my teeth every six months, so he was all like, “I think you need braces.” And then, presumably so I could mentally prepare my tubby body for the deprivation it was about to endure, he gave me a manual of all the things you weren’t allowed to eat while you had braces, which included just about every food you can possibly imagine besides bananas that have been pre-chewed by a parent or legal guardian and regurgitated into your mouth.

I got braces in the fifth grade, on one of those glorious days in elementary school when we were catered some local delicacy, like McDonald’s or the knockoff Subway or pizza from the place inside the bowling alley. Our school brought in these hot lunches every month, I assume, as a way to keep us from rioting, and they were my favorite days of the year. I kept a calendar for the sole purpose of tracking hot-lunch days.