Halve an incisor and what do you get?

One insecure, embarrassed, scared-to-smile, always fake-smiling, asymmetrically-faced girl.

I broke my left front tooth when I was in 8th std...
I was in boarding school and it was a cold cold day.

We had jogging everyday morning at 6. I think it should be made illegal to wake up kids (esp school kids staying away from their parents in a godforsaken hill station) before 7. It was sheer torture. And in spite of the jackets we were allowed to use, it became unbearably cold at that time of the morning. Sometimes there was so much mist and fog, you couldn’t see your own hand in front of you, let alone the person in front of you or the uphill path we were sometimes forced to go on cross country jogs for...
They were some who enjoyed it. But the more sensible people like me, loathed it. Considering I still dislike exercise in any form or shape (be it running up four goddamned floors in college to reach my class, or lifting my ass to go buy something to eat from the canteen), its quite surprising when I find I actually miss it - but that’s only when I'm in one of my nostalgic moods... In fact thinking about it, I think the root of my dislike for exercise has its beginnings in Munnar...
So anyway... like I was saying…

It was a cold cold day, and I hated the sound of the bell that was rung to wake us all up... As I curled back into my cozy blanket (yes - we had nice cozy warm blankets), I knew I was going to be late...
Just as I had dressed and was sleepily combing my hair... One of the early risers came in and announced that we didn’t have jogging but we had exercises.
Happy that I didn’t have to drudge up the shiny wet slopes tired and glad I didn’t have to listen to "You there! No walking! One lap extra! Jog, I say!" from the PT master, I ran down the stairs. Exercises were considerably better than jogging... Because, they didn’t involve much moving away from the same place.
I was quite cheerful throughout the exercises unlike the jogging days when I had a distinctly sullen and sour look on my face. Perhaps because I looked more forthcoming and positive, the PT sir chose me for a race. Sheesh! Me! Who hated physical competition of any sort, because I knew I would always come last and I hated losing...
But anyway this race was of a different sort. We had to race while doing exercises. Like 'frog jumps’ (which are sit-ups, I think) or hopping (which was easier than the rest) or 'bear crawls’ (which meant just that - crawling on fours-only not hands and knees but hands and feet).
But the one that would scar me for life was The Crocodile Walk.
How do I describe it? I cant, no matter how much I try. So I choose to source it from here.

Crocodile walk - You're face down again. This time the object is to crawl along the floor with your torso as close to the floor as possible without touching. It's hard to describe the leg/foot and arm/hand positioning. Just plop down and figure out what works for you.

What did work for my PT sir was dragging one's body along the floor (without touching the torso to the floor - of course... only I always conveniently forgot that little detail, and since no one can really make out.. I got away with it, too) with one's elbows.
I was in the first race. There was some rainwater, or some other puddle (I'd rather not imagine what. With my school's open corridors- it could have been anything.) And my elbow slipped. Just like that. Slipped! And because I was panting and gasping, my mouth happened to be open. All my weight was supposed to be on that elbow... Which slipped! Something else had to yield... And so my head flew forward, mainly due to inertia and not due to willingness to take the weight, and my tooth hit the hard stone floor.
When I got up, my head was dizzy and I knew something was wrong. And then I saw it. A bit of white porcelain on the floor and some powder alongside it too. Like it was broken off from something. Couldn’t think what it could be. You see - My mouth was still open and my hand was holding my nose, because my nose had hit the floor hard as well.
Then when I closed my mouth... I could feel something missing. Then I looked down and everything fell into place. And I started screaming...
Everyone thought it was because it had hurt when the tooth broke off. The secret I kept to myself was that it had hardly pained at all... Those were tears of dismay... How could I walk around with a half tooth? What would my dad say? Most likely he would be mad! Which brought tears...What would he think?!?!
One look in the mirror was enough to convince me that my new nickname would be Ms Dracula. And since I knew someone who I liked, liked me back, my first thought after my dad was whether he would ever like this new avatar of mine. And that brought even more tears.

In the end, however, my dad was too pre-occupied with other things to be mad about this, and other than for a small homily I escaped unscathed.
My crush was sensible enough to calm my fears and assure me that it mattered nought to him.
He even thought it was cute and continued to call me Ms. Dracula for months in spite of my many protests not to.
I got it fixed during my two month vacation and I was as good as new when I entered the 9th std confident and minus vampire phobias.
In 11th the cap fell off and I got it fixed permanently, this time.
Two months later, it fell off again, while I was chewing a pencil, earnestly studying for my boards.
My dad, has since then, been promising me that he would take me to the dentist. Unfortunately, he loathes exercise just as much as me.
I still have my half tooth. I have recently got over all my insecurities and have decided to smile properly. As a result all my recent pics look horrible. I am undaunted.
I am also in a bit of a muddle whether to fix it or not. I am comfortable with it and I think its ME. But do others? Yes. I am shallow enough to think about what others think.
So I have given my dearest daddy a deadline. "By this year or else...."
(But knowing him and his loathing of exercise.... *sigh* )

P.S. - I noticed I strayed away from the topic quite a bit. Sorry, please forgive the nostalgia!
P.P.S. - So since I have only have one and a half front teeth... when I say :-P I actually mean it!