Teeth Tales: "Ratoncito Pérez is Not a Fairy"

I am not a fairy.

I know that's a loaded statement.
Please allow me to rephrase.

I am a mouse.
I collect teeth.

I have been doing this since 1894
and at no point in the process
have I worn a tutu,
carried a wand,
or entered a child's bedroom
through the WINDOW
like some kind of MANIAC!

I come in through the pipes.
Like a professional.

I have never sparkled.
I want that on the record.
I have never ONCE sparkled!
I have been covered in dust,
drywall powder, dog hair,
and something I found under a child's mattress
that I choose not to identify,
but I have never sparkled.
I don't have the glands for it.
I don't think that's how glands work.

We're getting off topic.

The woman they're thinking of...
She's not real. She doesn't exist.
Trust me.

She has a Wikipedia page
and I've been banned from it twice
(two different accounts)
for posting FACTS
under "Historical Accuracy"
while a nineteen-year-old moderator
in a dorm room
decides that I'M the unreliable source.
I don't want to get into it.

The dog knows.
He sees me every time.
He also works nights 
guarding your house against threats
that don't exist.
We're the only two honest workers here...
and he eats his own vomit
so take that however you want.

So, last night, some kid writes me a note.
Purple crayon on a paper plate:
Dear Tooth Fairy,
I swallowed my tooth at dinner.
Please still come.

My grandfather did this job.
Carried teeth through walls
that didn't even have electricity.
Nobody called him a fairy.

He would have bitten them.

So, I climbed the bed.
My back went out
under the itchy pillowcase
with that ice queen's face on it 
(yet another fictional woman
more famous than me)
and I lay there for ten minutes
waiting for my vertebrae
to reach an agreement.

There was no tooth
and I left the quarter anyway.
I'm not a sentimental mouse.
It's just the job.

Don't call me a fairy.