Pirates often are characterized by wearing an eye patch because they're missing one eye from a ferocious battle involving swords and cannons. Rather than a duel on the high seas, I lost a fight with the tether-ball pole in 2nd grade during a fierce game of tag at recess. I'm not familiar with the elastic tooth patch, but if they existed perhaps I would put one on order.

Maybe you're on the edge of your seat yelling, "Ted, open up. I want to see the whole enchillada - the full missing tooth photo!" Well, the fact that I'm showing you even this mostly-closed mouth of mine is a near miracle, since I've been doing my best to hide my missing pearly white for the entire week from friends, teammates, and the ubiquitous Polish cycling fan.

Like I said, after an abrupt end to my tooth being firmly connection to my head in 2nd grade, I've had it capped... or something like that; I'm not familiar with all the dental jargon. However, after the first stage of Tour of Poland, I bit into a mouthful of food and immediately felt somewhat was awry. A quick swoop of my tongue throughout my mouth indicated that I look like a mouth pirate (that's my ineloquent way of saying I'm missing a tooth) and so I've made it through this week sans tooth and with only a few people in the know.

I originally created this blog to keep you apprised with what I'm up to of late - my world travels, the trials and tribulations of life on the road. Well, you know that feeling when you have even something minute like a single granule of sand in your mouth and it drives you absolutely nuts?! You can rest assured that my missing tooth has been fairly close to the forefront of my awareness this week and therefore a worthy story to be told. With any luck, though, by the time you read this my mouth with lack one gaping hole where my number 2 lateral incisor should be.

Oh, in other news, I see that someone typed the following to end up on this here website:

Тед кинг

I think that's awesome.