I couldn’t wait to get braces. I had been fantasizing about a tin-grin since I was 9 years old. That year, the Tony Danza flick, She’s Out of Control, dropped, and it utterly changed my life. In the movie, his brace-faced, glasses-wearing, book-nerd of a daughter one day gets contacts, takes her braces off, and walks down a staircase in a flowing dress to the dreamy crooning of “Venus” by Frankie Avalon. In an instant I understood the formula: straighten your teeth, fix your style, throw your books away, and descend from on high a real knockout.

My parents finally agreed to let me get them in 1993. It felt like entering the chrysalis. (I had perfect eyesight, but I also wanted to get eyeglasses just to complete the “before” version of myself. It was deep.)

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