A Toe-Nail Fairy?

We live by a very serious creed around here at the Skillman house:

If you lose a body part, stick it under your pillow and see if you can get some money for it.

This dogma originated from deep contemplation when I was about 6-years old .  An enlightened thinker aren't I?  Yes indeed.

When I was a kid I wondered why some fairy would pay money for a junky old tooth that fell out of your head.  Doesn't really make sense does it?  But the tooth market went gangbusters and seemed to be a big cash cow for a kid like me and I began to wonder why teeth were the only body part that had a fairy on duty doling out the cash. 

I decided to test my little theory that teeth can't be worth more than any other body part lost, so when I was set to have my tonsils taken out, my young mind was abuzz with a plan.  I simply asked the doc to put said tonsils in a jar and I took those suckers home and tried my luck by putting them under my pillow. 

All I got was a sore neck from a large lumpy pillow--Apparently there ain't a tonsil fairy after all. 

Then about a dozen years ago Mitchell was bit by a dog in the forehead.  I'm not really sure what happened because a great mystery-ridden cover-up shrouded both the affair and the abrasion. The bite was concealed with an extra large bandage by someone with a history of unorthodox behavior.  Several days later, after the bandage was removed, it was discovered that indeed the wound was more serious than the "bandage brandish-er" had thought and that something incredibly huge was lodged into the poor kid's forehead. 

Fast forward a creepy month later and out from Mitchell's very own forehead I literally wiggled loose (with a pair of giant tweezers)
a very large dog's tooth!  Which explains his ultra cool Harry Potter-like forehead scar. 

This event was sure to both literally and psychologically scar the kid for life...until I suddenly thought of a great plan...

"Why don't you put it under your pillow and see if the Tooth Fairy will take it?"  I suggested.  Then I built a brilliant case for the payment of any tooth lost from anywhere on one's body; kid or canine.  A tooth's a tooth right??

And so Mitchell tried his luck and put it under his pillow.  The next morning he discovered he had received a windfall of cash for one of the most epic tooth losses of all time.

Ever since then, we've been putting all kinds of lost body parts under our pillows: gum ridden clumps of hair mostly.  Thank goodness no one around here has had an appendix removed because I'd try extorting a few bucks for that too.  A loss is a loss, right?

So when our cousin Madi spent the night over the weekend and she lost her entire big toenail I knew exactly what must be done.  The poor girl, just weeks earlier, had cut her big toe so badly that half the thing was stitched back on so it would stay put.  And while Madi's toe was miraculously saved...her toenail was not.  It barely hung on after "the storm grate incident" and her nail finally gave up the ghost and fell off at our house. 

Chloe, who's very familiar with, and has been well trained in   
"the art of extracting money for lost body parts" quickly sprung into action and ran and got an envelope for ravaged nail and plunked it inside, insisting that Madi write a note to the Tooth Fairy explaining her little mishap.

It was placed under her pillow that night.

In the morning, low and behold, we were elated to discover that there is a Toe Fairy!  and she's/he's ready to pay out!  (and we noticed this fairy is not as forgetful as the Tooth Fairy has been of late.)

So a word to the penny-wise:  If you lose it, and it came from your body, find an envelope it'll fit in and try your luck.  You'll be amazed at what you'll get paid for these days.

Sadly though, tonsils need not apply.