I took Belle for her first official dentist’s appointment when she was four years old. She wore a red cowgirl skirt, with fringe at the bottom, that was once my sister’s skirt. She wore a red cowboy shirt, covered with piping and white fringe, that was once my brother’s shirt. She had red leather boots and a red cowboy hat. She put them all on, gathered up an armful of sweet dollies, and the Cowgirl Princess was ready to go to the dentist.

The dentist was really good with her. She cried anyway, because she’s always been sensitive to odors and tastes, and the purple rinse he gave her made her sick. After I smelled it, I almost got sick. GRAPES don’t even smell that grape-y. The color purple has an odor.

She had no cavities. She’s had very few in all her life. I’ve only had four. Zappa hasn’t had any. The kids are lucky that they inherited my teeth. Poor Hub brushes and flosses and rinses and does everything he’s supposed to do and yet he has cavities.

It was an adventure in parenting, but that’s not what this post is about. This post is about Zappa, and me, in the waiting room of the dentist’s office.

While Belle was in there being inspected and cleaned, Zappa and I were in the waiting room, reading all those little thin hardback sample books the salesmen leave in medical waiting rooms, hoping the mothers will order them after they read them there.

This particular book was called “But No Elephants.” It’s about an elephant who desperately wanted to be included, but everywhere he went he was greeted with “No elephants!” The elephant was sad and depressed and lonely, but he still sought out other animals, etc. The story had a happy ending. It was a cute little book.

But in the middle of my reading, Zappa burst into tears. He was so sorry for the lonely elephant, he couldn’t stand it.

He told me to stop reading. He reached over and closed the book. I told him that was fine and laid it down on the table. I wanted to pick him up and hug him but he moved away from me. He sat there, tears pouring down his freckly little cheeks; several times he reached over and patted the book, as if to comfort it.

Finally, he picked it up and gave it back to me, and told me to go ahead and read the rest of it to him.

“I want to know.” he said.

“Honey, are you sure?” I asked him.

“Well, Mommy,” said my precious sensitive loving warm-hearted little boy, “If you find out that nobody will ever want the little elephant boy, don’t tell me, and just make up a good mommy-ending to the story.”

I agreed, and we opened the little book and started in where we’d left off.

He studied all the pictures carefully, looking for clues in the expressions of the animals.

Fortunately, the story ended happpily. Zappa’s little face lit up like a candle.

“I was worried about the lonely elephant boy, Mommy,” he told me.

“I know you were.” I said. “But he’s a happy elephant boy now.”

“Was this a happy Mommy ending?” he wanted to know.

“No, it was the real ending. The little elephant boy is really happy now,” I assured him.

The relief on his little face was something I’ll never forget. His whole body relaxed. He scooted down from the chair and went over to the blocks, and played happily for the rest of the hour.

When we were leaving, he went back over to the book table and patted the book again.

“Bye, little elephant boy,” he said. “You have fun with your friends.”

He looked up at me and said, “Somebody’s Mommy wrote this book, didn’t they.”

I told him I bet she did.

“I can tell. When the little animals are happy at the end, a mommy wrote the story.”

And we went home, all of us smiling and smelling like extract of grape.

To this very day, he hates that book.

Actually, I think somebody’s Daddy wrote that book, but Daddies want the little animals to be happy at the end, too.

I wish Mommies could fix the endings of all the stories of their lives.