the corner office

The tooth mouse had cause to visit the household - on my birthday of all days (more on that in another post). We had a minor dilemma - what's the going rate for a tooth these days? I can barely remember what it was when we were kids, but I suspect 20c or the like was about right. Maybe I'm doing the same thing our parents did when talking about what they got. It was always a tickey (half a cent) and that was enough for them to catch a bus into town, pay for movies AND popcorn AND still have enough money to buy a pie WITH chips on the way home AND put down a deposit on a 2nd hand car.

We finally settled on a amount we thought was reasonable. We'll call it X. Our child decided that the tooth mouse is a cheapskate. We should have seen the warning signs, when the following fragments of conversation happened:

"If there's a tooth mouse and a tooth fairy will I get money twice for the same tooth?"

and

"How much will I get for my tooth?"
"X"
"How many teeth do I have?"