I wore braces for three- and- a- half long years until finally, halfway through my junior year of high school, I begged my orthodontist and my mom to take them off. I had come to the conclusion that if my teeth weren't straight after nearly four years of tightening and re- tightening, then they were simply meant to be crooked. I could live with that, but I couldn't live with all that metal one more second.

My orthodontist had other ideas. He thought one more year would be ideal. Well, his food didn't taste like aluminum foil. Loose wires didn't constantly stab the inside of his mouth, and he didn't have to compete with pearly- mouthed pretty boys for the attention of high school coeds. All my orthodontist had to do was collect a check each week, tighten my wires like he was tightening the lugnuts on his Mercedes, and tell me my teeth were still crooked. Three- and- a- half years of that was enough.

Twenty- two years later my teeth are in fact crooked, and there is very little evidence I ever wore braces, but I can say with no hesitation my final days of high school were eminently better without a mouth full of metal. I don't have the slightest amount of regret for setting my crooked teeth free, even if my mom and her checkbook probably didn't see it that way.

Now I'm on the other side of the equation. My oldest daughter recently got braces. If I'd known then how much braces cost now, I may have kept mine and seen if I could hand them down like some sort of family heirloom. Of course that makes about as much sense as passing down dentures or a pair of socks, but the sticker shock is enough to make one think of such things.

Do they make braces out of platinum now? Why are they so expensive? As far as I can tell, there's more metal in a Coke can. I guess it's like everything else…the materials don't cost much, but the labor will kill you.

Despite my whining, the cost isn't the worst part of this latest entrance into the world of braces, and it's certainly not my daughter's fault she inherited my goofy mouth. The problem is my daughter entered the orthodontist's office as my little girl and came out looking like Miley Cirus. My eleven- year- old suddenly looks like she should be driving…not playing with Barbie Dolls.

Braces did nothing but turn me into the poster child for the awkward teenager. They've had a completely different effect on my oldest daughter. One day she's planning tea parties and the next day after a trip to the orthodontist, she looks like she should be planning her wedding. Braces made me goofy. They're making her old. That's worse than any pain I ever felt in that orthodontist's chair or in my wallet.