I Always Look Out for the GAP – A Gap Teeth Story

I was facetiming with my family back at home, and mama found my appearance on the screen quite amusing.

She would look at the screen and break into laughter, over and over. I didn’t know what seemed funny, so I smiled hugely wondering what could elicit laughter from a mere face.

“Mama, what’s so funny? Am I that funny? I barely said anything yet you kept on laughing.” I asked.

She laughed again. Oh goodness.

“What’s wrong?” I asked

“Your teeth, they’re so huge….haha!” Now the laughter was even louder.

Everybody else joined in. It was like a howl, and it was all over the place. I could feel it 150 kilometers away.

A smiling bunny

I was holding the phone right in front of my face, but the camera only seemed to be interested in my teeth.

Nevertheless, my gap teeth are particularly conspicuous, especially when I smile properly.

This time it made me feel like a smiling bunny in front of a packed cinema hall.

But I also laughed, a tiny bit though.

In some way, this was actually a good thing. People were laughing and I hear laughter adds years onto life.

Well, there is a figure for it, and its 8 years. That’s a lot!

On the contrary, you won’t add a single hour to life by worrying. It sucks the life out of you.

So, if I was going to add more life to people by rocking bunny smiles, then I might keep smiling even the more.

Reminiscing…my gap teeth history

The gap teeth have been like a spotlight shining on me.

Back then in elementary, my mates would make so much fun of it. I still remember the teasing, the names and the badgering.

But it didn’t get to me. In fact, I would laugh all along. I was OK with it.

The dad-vice (dad advice)

My dad seemed to have the anatomy of a bully all figured out, so he would repeatedly give me this one tip:

“Do not let them think their words affect you, just act as if they said nothing important, or even laugh along with them.”

To join a bully in their cause against you, and laugh as they laugh at you? It seemed counter intuitive.

But I took the advice and look, I turned out alright.

“If you appear distressed by the teasing, they’ll be motivated to keep on. But if you act unperturbed, the jokes will just phase out.” The dadvice was good.

Enjoying the teasing sure looks dumb, but eventually everyone got used to it and the gap teeth jokes became like an old dad joke that is no longer funny.

The extra advantage

On top of the dadvice, I had the advantage of being a hot shot, scoring grades twice my body size, while also being an habitual dozer.

Being that tiny, scoring well and dozing through almost all the preps was enough to make a sensation out of me.

My dozing was very dramatic. I would be bouncing off my head all over the desk.

It was real time entertainment for my mates.

“How do you do it? You’re always dozing around, yet you beat us all the time.” They would ask over and over again.

And it served me well, dwarfing all the gap teeth teasing.

Now even my family makes fun of it, and its alright. I’m all good.

In fact, I’m always on the lookout for people with the gap teeth. I can tell you for sure, they are all prominent.

I’ll give you a couple of examples:

• We’ll start with both my grandmas
• Kenya’s first president Jomo Kenyatta
• The fourth president Uhuru Kenyatta
• The elegant Victoria Rubadiri
• Peter Ndegwa – Safaricom’s CEO
• Oh hey, my crush too