<p>Dental Detour
On July 5th before my sophomore year, I took the back seat on a golf cart that was well over capacity. The golf cart grumbled as it rolled down the streets—it couldn’t accommodate the weight of six teenagers. Being a hotheaded juvenile who wanted to impress his pals, I hopped off the back seat to ease the golf cart’s climb up a hill. The cart was moving faster than I had predicted, so when I hit the ground, my kicks didn’t catch the pavement. It was like falling onto a treadmill whirring at its maximum setting. Just after my feet were jettisoned from beneath me, I caught the full impact of pavement on my open mouth. The snap of broken teeth and dental appliances reverberated throughout my head. I laid there, stock-still on the pavement, forehead molded to the pebbles and twigs that had found their way onto the road. Something warm and metallic flooded my mouth. None of my buddies tried to peel me off the ground; perhaps they thought I was forumlating a cover story to persuade my mother it had been an accident. I rose, and my somber companions brought me back to the adults in silence.
Flash forward, one week. I soldiered through a week-long theater camp, and it was the hour before our debut production. I was to be Mayor Shinn in “The Music Man.” Somehow, I hadn’t grasped the fact that I would have to perform for a huge audience that I couldn’t woo with a toothy smile, for I had only had time for preliminary structural work to patch up my piano-key grin. As the manager ushered me through the downstage curtain, I took a long breath to compose myself. An hour and a half later, I realized that I’d acted in a play without my greatest tool—and everything turned out fine. From that performance, I was forever known as “Toothless Thomas.” Two weeks later, I started band camp. I hadn’t practiced my mellophone all summer like I should’ve, so it was a painful surprise when I couldn’t play—if I held my mouthpiece against my face for long durations, my tooth would throb. The dentist who repaired my teeth expected nerve damage. He was right. It turned out my hopes of playing mellophone, or any of the other instruments I put years of work into, had been shattered, just like my teeth on the asphalt. Not wanting to miss out on marching band, I proposed to my director that I join the pit section, if there was a space for me. She obliged, and I learned to play marimba within the week.
My broken teeth inadvertently refreshed my outlook on success. I learned to respond to failure, to bounce back from disappointment, and to salvage disaster. Less investment in band meant I had less barring me from applying to a new high school, the one I now happily attend. Despite my fortunate recovery from my incident, I still feel constantly nagged by missed chances and squandered opportunity. I took a gamble jumping off that golf cart, and it didn’t pay off. I never found my tooth, either. Maybe it’s still lying there, splintered on the side of the road. More likely, I swallowed it, just as I swallowed my pride months later, when I finally fessed up and told my parents that, contrary to their belief, I had jumped off the golf cart instead of fallen. And there is the most significant lesson I learned from having my teeth broken. Rather than simply discovering how to recuperate from disaster, I learned to claim responsibility for mistakes I had made. I’m not tooting my horn or anything; I can’t do that anymore anyways. But the life lessons that were engrained in me far outweigh any of the consequences of the great golf cart catastrophe of 2012.</p>
<p>Don’t post your essays online for people to copy. Read the warnings and suggestions on the top of the forum in the pinned threads.</p>
<p>Pretty good. </p>
<p>Watch for misused words, like jettisoned is not quite right here.</p>
<p>Wow! Impressive use of a single incident to connect so many elements of your life and personality. I really like it. I do agree with BrownParent about the misused words; “rumbled” vs. “grumbled” is another one.</p>
<p>Tie the lessons from your experience more directly into the musical/theatrical background.</p>
<p>Really liked the first part btw </p>
<p>Also “forumlating” --> formulating</p>
<p>Seems like you might have just clicked the synonym button a bunch of times. Good writing, but it seems like you might have been forcing the words to fit.</p>
<p>Really amazing essay you wrote. This is something I would remember/ think about. </p>
<p>I thoroughly enjoyed this essay. Nicee!</p>
<p>This was greaf</p>