I have been long informed, by the man who shines bright lights in my mouth once a year and issues a verdict on my flossing habits, that I grind my teeth. He also informs me that I should think about buying a mouthguard, which both makes me feel approximately 48 years old and strikes me as mondo expensivo. The grinding hasn’t been too much of a problem for me - I’ve got years of work to do before I lose them utterly! - but I do suspect it increases my migraines, neck tension, and TMJ (a thing where my jaw pops out of alignment, and clicks. Did I mention feeling twice my calendar age?). So recently I called up the bright-light man’s office, in the course of deciding about dental insurance options, and asked how much this implement of premature aging would cost. “Usually runs around $425.”

Years of practicing an excellent phone manner allowed me to get off the phone without compromising my cheerful exterior. Four hundred bucks to encase my teeth in bouncy plastic? Surely there had to be some $10 option at my local pharmacy. But nothing availed me, until a friend told me I could accomplish the same task with an inexpensive sports mouthguard. This point of view seconded by an ex-rugby-playing co-worker, I hied me to Gart Sports and found a fittable mouthguard for $1.99. Amusingly, the clerk looked my non-ruggers frame up and down and said confusedly, “Lacrosse?” Ha ha ha! NO. I took the thing home, boiled it and fitted it, and cut off the face-guard strap. I am equipped. And I can even pretend I’m sporty, not entering middle age.

So I’ve been trying to sleep with the damnable thing, which almost invariably ends in my being more wakeful than before, as I squidge it around in my mouth, chew on it, breathe awkwardly around it, and finally slough it off into its little bowl. Two nights ago I managed to sleep with the thing on, and shucked it out without thinking the first time I woke up for water. Last night, crawling into bed oh-so-tired, I thought I could probably sleep with its distraction and annoyance, and I was right.

I woke up at around 5 this morning, groggily reached for my water, and halted in mid-reach. Where was the big clunky mouthguard I’d been slurping my water around all night? I blindly patted around me on the bed, on the pillow. Teddy bear. I checked the floor. A pair of socks and an overflow of quilt. I clutched my throat. Did it feel…funny? It obliged. I thought of my sister’s retainer, which disappeared in the night her freshman year and was never seen again. Had I SWALLOWED my mouthguard? Was that even possible? Was it lodged in my lower esophagus even now? Would they have to operate? My drowsy mind raced, and I threw back the covers to surge out of bed and do who knows what—dislodging my mouthguard, tucked into the folds of a coverlet. I guess I managed to extract the thing while completely and totally asleep. I don’t think I’m ever going to manage to wear that thing all night.