Just came across this article in today’s Houston Chronicle. Front page, no less.

At 9:30 every morning, Thomas Dang opens TV Jewelry. Traffic is nonstop: One customer wants a 48-inch chain, another needs his grille cleaned because he smoked while wearing it, yet another is there to pick up a pendant and decides he wants diamonds on its back side, too.

Theirs is like the evolution of the sneaker shop, except, now, teenagers save their money for a grille.

Young customers hover over the display cases, taking one more look at the pieces they’ll someday buy.

Jon Pierre, 18 and a student at Worthing High School, used his tax return to buy his $180 grille. It’s one of the cheapest here — yellow gold, thin as foil — but he came by every week eyeing the one he wanted, until he had the cash.

Dee Edwards, 20, spent $800 on his, one with an elegant array of white diamonds.

They go to TV Jewelry because Mike Jones does, because T.I. does. “This is the best place to get your grilles,” says Edwards.

Grilles are almost a rite of passage.

Other choice quotes:

“When you get your teeth, it’s a sign of success…And to have them made by Johnny, it’s a sign that you got it done by an original, a pioneer.”

“It’s a sex symbol, right now, because of the creativity — what it takes to put them together,” he says. “This is what youth culture does.”

The grilles represent rebellion, he says.

Read the entire article at the Chronicle’s website.

I love it when I read stuff that amazes me.