THE BATTALION Page 1B
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 5, 1980
Wednesday, November 5, 1980
The Battalion
B
both Fairy is alive and well and on the telephone
She gilds teeth, has her own hotline, and teaches children dental hygiene
United Press International
CHICAGO — For parents unable
convince their children they
ould brush their teeth, the Tooth
iry is ready to lend a hand.
The Tooth Fairy is Sharon Rut-
s twski, 32, a dental assistant in sub
ban Addison. She has established a
ilephone hotline as a way of educat-
; children about dental hygiene.
[‘Children have a poor attitude ab-
Jjt dental health, ’ Rutkowski said,
fit’s tough to get them in the habit of
Tushing. I have two of my own. I
low.
(‘About a year ago I thought of the
oth Fairy Hotline. The children
i call 24 hours a day, every day.
ice a week I talk to them personal-
md discuss brushing, how often to
dental floss and just things they
to do.
‘The best way of reaching children
hrough fantasy. No one ever did
ich with the Tooth Fairy. No one
;w why she was picking up the
!th. So I figured what better char-
:er to give children some incen-
e?”
utkowski said most of her callers
are between the ages of 3 and 12,
“but I have gotten calls from teen
agers and some parents call to find
out what I’m telling their children. ”
Calls come from as far away as
California and Florida, she said.
The dark-haired, dark-eyed
woman, whose personal appearances
outfit is a pearl crown and a white
chiffon dress with wings, gives out
“Official Tooth Fairy Awards” and
gilds baby teeth for $2. (“I used to
charge $1.50,” she said, “but gold
leafing has gone up.”)
Rutkowski estimates she receives
an average 1,000 calls from children
and gilds about 100 teeth every
week.
She now is looking for a sponsor to
underwrite her personal appear
ances, which she makes with “Mr.
Brush, Mr. Tooth and Mr. Cavity.”
Her presentation, usually made at
schools and parks, includes the
legend of the Tooth Fairy:
“When I was very little, I had a lot
of friends with stinky breath and yel
low teeth,” she says in a high-
pitched, squeaky voice. “I used to
wonder why.
“One day, one of my friends lost a
tooth and dropped it on the ground. I
picked it up. It had a lot of holes in it
and I asked my dentist why. He ex
plained and that’s when I decided to
become a fighter against Mr. Cavity.
“Mr. Sandman gave me a bag of
magic dust. I sprinkled some over
my head and I got wings—but I only
fly between midnight and 6 a.m.”
At this point she interrupted her
story to say she put in that last line so
children wouldn’t ask her to fly for
them.
“Then I sprinkled some magic
dust over the tooth (pause) and it
changed into a black pearl,” she con
tinued. “So I went into a store to see
how much I could get for it. Well,
they grabbed it.
“So I started leaving notes under
children’s pillows saying, ‘Leave me
a tooth and I’ll leave you a prize, the
Tooth Fairy.’ So I sprinkled magic
dust over all the teeth and the ones
without cavities turned into white
pearls — and stores gave me a lot
more for white pearls than black
pearls.
“And that’s why I go from house-
to-house collecting teeth.”
Rutkowski said her husband,
Richard, 34, has gotten quite a kick
out of the whole Tooth Fairy scene
and even was responsible for part of
her collection of props.
“I was sick one day and couldn’t
answer the phone, but how can you
tell a child — some of them call faith
fully twice a week — that the Tooth
Fairy is sick,” she said. “So Richard
said he’d help out.
“I don’t know what he did to his
voice, but he sounded like a robot.
He told the children he was Toothie-
ack, my electronic robot.
“So now I’ve got a little radio con
trolled robot. I tell the children that
when they’re bom, Toothie-ack gets
the information and is programmed
to send out a ticker tape to tell me
where to go to collect the teeth.”
The Tooth Fairy Hotline is (312)
628-0615.
Paris bank looted
during holiday
irazilians getting more miles to the fifth
United Press International
RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil —
Jen 100-percent alcohol-powered
; s went on sale in April, Brazilians
Iked at buying them. Now there is
ptampede to get them.
■ With the Iran-Iraq war, the Bra-
fan has come to be terrified of
oline and only wants to know ab-
|t alcohol,” said Wolfgang Sauer,
sident of Volkswagen’s giant Bra-
an subsidiary.
N’ew car dealers in this oil-poor
intry report as many as eight or
e of every 10 potential customers
for an alcohol-powered model,
it Ford, Chevy, Volks or Fiat,
ist dealers have waiting lists. They
price is the chief factor. Alcohol
1, subsidized by the government,
ts the consumer barely half as
Kimch as gasoline.
liForthe first time there are reports
the home-grown fuel may be in short
supply in 1981.
Brazil’s alcohol program goes back
to 1975 when the military govern
ment started the plan to replace ex
pensive imported ojl with alcohol
made from Brazilian sugar cane.
First the alcohol was mixed into reg
ular gasoline. Now almost 2,000 ser
vice stations sell pure alcohol fuel at
the pump as well as the regular
gasohol.
Production of alcohol cars has
accelerated since the start of the
year. Automakers have topped the
100,000-unit mark and have an
agreement with the government to
finish 1980 at 250,000 alcohol models
out of an overall auto production of
1.1 million.
Sales went so slowly at first that
auto industry officials suggested ex
tra incentives for alcohol car buyers.
MSC Arts Committee
is sponsoring a
Juried Student
Art and Crafts
Competition
Entries will be accepted
November 17 through 19
10 a.m.-10 p.m. at the
MSC Craft Shop.
For rules and further information contact the MSC Craft
ihop.
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«
But during the year gasoline
prices tripled and buyers soon disco
vered it was cheaper to burn the gov
ernment-subsidized alcohol than
heavily taxed gasoline.
Current pump prices are $2.85
per gallon for regular fuel, $1.52 per
gallon for alcohol. Alcohol cars get
about 20 percent fewer miles per gal
lon of fuel, but the government has
guaranteed that alcohol always will
cost at least 35 percent less than
gasoline so the alcohol car owner
should always come out ahead.
When the Persian Gulf War hit,
Brazil was importing almost half its
oil needs from Iraq. Immediately
there was talk of gasoline rationing
and the government hiked the price
of regular another 18 percent.
Government specialists reported
ly fear an alcohol shortage in 1981
should current consumption rates
continue.
But both the industry minister and
the agriculture minister denied
there will be any shortage.
United Press International
PARIS — Thieves who apparently
hid inside a bank branch before it
closed for a three-day holiday
weekend looted 250 safe deposit
boxes and left a painted inscription
that read, “Without hate, without
violence, without weapons. Thank
you,” police reported Tuesday.
Officials at the Caisse d’Epargne
branch in a fashionable residential
district of the city discovered the
theft when they opened for business
after the All Saints Day weekend.
They said they could make no im
mediate estimate of losses without an
inventory of the boxes’ contents, but
expected the toll to involve millions
of dollars worth of valuables.
Investigators said an unknown
number of thieves apparently hid in
the bank’s offices before it closed Fri
day afternoon and spent the
weekend breaking into about one-
third of the branch’s safe deposit
boxes.
They tossed aside securities that
would be difficult to sell and also left
some jewelry and gold ingots in a pile
of discarded items on the vault floor,
police said, indicating they found it
impossible to carry all their booty.
No signs of broken locks or forced
doors were found inside the bank
and it was not immediately clear how
the thieves escaped.
Police said it was possible they dis
covered keys inside the offices that
allowed them to leave by one of the
doors after deactivating an alarm
system.
The inscription found spray-
painted on the vault wall was similar
to one left behind by burglars who
looted 339 safe boxes at a bank in the
Riviera resort city of Nice in 1976
after tunneling inside.
Special
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of fine fashion jewelry. Kubies.
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driday, November 7, 1980
12: OO am- 9: OO pm
Saturday, November 8,
10:00-5:00pm
Register for door prize
of Diamonds and Ruby Ring
Value $1000°° to be given
away Nov 8, 5:00 pm
FLiijdsey’s
Manor East Mall
Mon.-Fri. 10-8:30
Sat 10-6:00