Story told to me by a friend:

On the evening of New Year's Day my two girls were jumping around on the big bed. Eve accidentally whacked Cynthia in the mouth, loosening a very loose tooth. Blood was shed; Cynthia panicked. She ran to the bathroom, saw blood, and started howling. She put a cold cloth on it but wouldn't allow us to touch or even look at it.

So from 8:00 to 9:00 she sat with the washcloth pressed to her mouth as the flow of blood abated. We told her to try to move it with her tongue, but she said that it hurt too much. She finally agreed to rinse out her mouth -- carefully. We told her that we'd have to do something that night, because we were concerned that, if the tooth fell out during her sleep, she could choke and die.

Well, she was a bit worried about that prospect, so she finally allowed us to take a look. But then she got more and more scared of our pulling it out. I was trying to hold her arms and face while my husband looked in her mouth. Meanwhile she was screaming! We were afraid the neighbors would call the police on us.

So finally we said, "Okay, Cynthia, look: you either have to let Daddy pull out your tooth or you'll risk choking in your sleep."

To which Cynthia replied "I CHOOSE DEATH!"