By ANGEL KANE, Wilson Living Magazine

My favorite, favorite thing to do is to get up before everyone else, make myself a cup of coffee and savor it for a good 10 minutes. And when that doesn’t happen….

So on Saturday morning, as I was making my way down the hall to my coffee maker, out of the shadows emerged a figure.

“I got nothing!!” moaned out the four-foot two-inch figure. 

“What are you doing up?” I moaned back, startled and not quite ready to face the day as coffee had not yet touched my lips.  

“The tooth fairy forgot to come, she didn’t give me any money and left my tooth under my pillow!”

YIKES -- my toothless child had been slighted by the tooth fairy -- and YIKES -- there was no coffee in sight!
 
I’ve come to believe that somewhere along the line we’ve gotten on some sort of short list. Be it the Tooth Fairy, Easter Bunny or Christmas Elf -- for whatever reason -- we keep getting their inept temp.

Our Tooth Fairy often forgets to bring her sparkle dust and silver coins.

Our Easter Bunny waits until the very last minute to fill our baskets, often relegating my children to stale marshmallow peeps and dented Cadbury Eggs.

And our Christmas elf -- well -- in the words of my middle child “he just sits there, does nothing and is lazy!”

As I tried to soothe the frayed and tattered nerves of my toothless eight-year-old, two more figures emerged from the shadows (and neither was holding my coffee mug!).

“Did you hear, he got nothing from the tooth fairy!” said my delighted daughters.

“Yes, I did hear,” I muttered. “Why don’t we take this little party into the kitchen so I can please have some coffee!”

Finally, in the kitchen, coffee was made and my cup had been poured. Now, all I had to do was drink up and this nightmare would soon go away.

I took a large sip.

“Don’t worry about it. I remember when the tooth fairy didn’t bring me anything either,” relayed my oldest “and the next night she left me ten dollars under my pillow.”

Aahhhh…and there it was!

“Ten dollars! Really, mama -- will she leave me ten dollars?” And all of a sudden, that frown turned in to a large toothless grin!!

Seems like the short list…has its perks. And coffee…makes everything better.    

To contact Angel you can email her at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it . To read more of Becky and Angel’s columns be sure to pick up their latest book “Telling Tales” at various locations including On-Call Pharmacy, The Paper Mill, Gifts On Main, Dot and Stells, amazon.com and barnesandnoble.com.