And now someone is betting parentkind no longer can deal with the tooth fairy without an app.
The recently introduced tooth fairy app is available for free on iPhones and iPads. Just tap in some personal information, including your age, income and education, and the app tells you how much the going rate is in your state for missing teeth.
When I tried it, the app informed me I should pay my kids $1 per tooth. Which was very helpful. Or would be if my youngest kid weren’t 30-something. Although I suppose he still could lose a tooth or two in a pickup basketball game or an argument with his wife.
A buck a tooth apparently is a bargain. According to a recent survey, the national average this year is $3, which is up from $2.60 last year. So far, neither presidential candidate has approved a message blaming his opponent for tooth-price inflation, but it’s probably only a matter of time.
Why we need an app to tell us how much to slip under our gap-toothed kids’ pillows is not completely clear to me. But according to a second-grade teacher quoted in a USA Today article, it’s a status thing. No one wants to be the parent of a child who is “the talk at recess” because his or her tooth fairy is a cheapskate, she explained.
Then again, the whole app thing is a mystery to me and it’s possible I’m the only iPhone owner on the planet who does not have an “Angry Birds” app. The only one I’ve ever used is the weather app, which gives me important meteorological information, such as whether it’s currently raining. This is a very helpful tool that saves me the trouble of looking out my window.
Obviously I’m out of technological step, though, because there are an estimated 1 million apps available. I have no idea how anyone can possibly keep track of them all.
But maybe there’s an app for that.
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