5 Unexpected Perks of Having a Tooth Gap
By: Julis Rei
Tags: Beauty, Comedy, Body Image, Confidence, Humor

Humor

5 Unexpected Perks of Having a Tooth Gap

Illustration by author

1. Endless storage possibilities

As Dakota Johnson has demonstrated in her Vanity Fair Secret Talent Theatre video, a tooth gap provides storage space for many items that are approximately .2 ~ .4 centimeters wide. You COULD discreetly hide your credit card in your bra when you’re out on the town, but you could ALSO just stick it between your two front teeth. You’d never have that split-second alarm of wondering, “Where did I put my card?!” because you could look down toward your nose and see the blurry form of your card jutting from outside of your mouth. Also, it’s just more fun. It’s a conversation starter. People would probably come up to you and be like, “Girl, you’re wild, and I like it.” And you’d just shrug effortlessly and say, “Oh, this credit card in my tooth gap? It’s honestly whatever. It’s like, just something fun I do sometimes.”

2. Straw tricks

If you have a tooth gap, you can fit one of your front teeth into a straw and sip on a cold beverage. The chill of the liquid will be shocking when it hits your tooth nerves, but if it’s been a while since you’ve felt anything real, this is THE THING to try. It will remind you that you’re alive, and that sometimes life can be cold and shocking. But if we never feel the cold, we’d never appreciate the warmth, or some shit like that. I think Incubus has a song about precisely this straw trick.

3. Floss: money-saving hack

Having a tooth gap means using just a little bit less floss, which could inevitably save you approximately 20 cents over the course of a year. When your toothbrush bristles can effectively reach and clean the sides of your two front teeth, there is simply no need to floss between those two teeth, and that’s money saved. If you continue using this money-saving hack, then after about three years, you will have saved enough money to substitute regular milk for oat milk on your latte order (only one time, though) at Starbucks. The numbers don’t lie.

4. License to regularly quote Mean Girls “gap-toothed bitch” line

This is one of my personal favorites. When you have a tooth gap, you are free to quote the line, “I’m sorry I called you a gap-toothed bitch, it’s not your fault you’re so gap-toothed” whenever quoting the aforementioned serves you. You could say it totally out of context. You can say it to yourself in the mirror. You can say it to someone randomly. They might look at you weird and ask, “Isn’t that from Mean Girls??” In which case, you can reply, “Why yes. Yes, it is.” They might respond, “You never called me a gap-toothed bitch?” But that’s none of your business. If they can’t respect your choice to quote a movie when it absolutely doesn’t apply to the current situation, then that’s on them. If this happens, WALK AWAY, BABY. They’re not worthy.

5. Cuteness

Tooth gaps are cute as hell. Elijah Wood? Tooth gap. Lily Aldridge? Tooth gap. Spongebob Squarepants? Tooth gap. Case closed. They are all cute entities with cute tooth gaps, and anyone who disagrees can fight me. My work here is done.

So if you have a tooth gap, don’t sign up for that free smile assessment for clear aligners just yet. When you close your tooth gap, you close the door of opportunity. And once that door closes, well, you can’t put random stuff in your tooth gap any more. So I say, keep it open to the universe.