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Jun 24, 2008

TEETHING PAINS

An elderly neighbour of mine is having difficulties with her dentures. Every time she laughs, they drop out of her mouth, which makes her laugh even more and sets the rest of us off, putting the entire floor in danger of being littered with false teeth!
Fortunately it is a predicament I have been able to avoid up until now – not having any dentures - but the whole situation puts me in mind of an event in early childhood that traumatized the living daylights out of me and preordained me never to become a dentist!

When I was about three, a neighbour of ours, a certain Mrs. R., who for some strange reason I had renamed Mrs. Football, was feeling poorly - and so mother and I stopped by on our way to the shops, to see if there was anything we could fetch for her. I remember tiptoeing after mother into a strange bedroom - and almost fainting with horror at the sight of the usually quite pretty Mrs. Football, with her mouth all sunken in - and her teeth and gums and the whole roof of her mouth in a glass beside her bed! It was beyond my infantile comprehension. She must be in agony!
But why wasn’t mother screaming as loudly as me and rushing me out of there?! Why was she pocketing Mrs. Football’s shopping list and picking me up and hanging me over the bed to kiss the poor suffering lady farewell…..oh no, no....help..help!

The gaping, sunken mouth slobbered over my cheek and… the rest is lost within the black and bottomless depths of a part of my psyche that is still three years old and getting dragged back across the road to change her ‘disgusting, wet knickers’ and have a cold wet cloth slapped on the back of her neck…

Toothless people don’t scare me anymore now of course – but if I ever have to give up what natural teeth I have left, I vow - on the memory of poor Mrs. Football - that I will never, never, never let my young grandchildren see me without my dentures in! Although of course, they are growing up in a completely different world to the one I grew up in and might think I look hilarious (?!) Still, it would probably be better not to chance it – there is after all a chronic shortage of dentists nowadays…

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

I have almost wet myself laughing!

Geri Atric said...

Oops! Hang on to your teeth!

Anonymous said...

Seeing as you can remember when you were three, I'm tagging you to remember how you felt when you were six, Geri.

Geri Atric said...

Hi declan - welcome! Hmm...six aye? Have to chomp on a little brain food first (chocolate) but will get back to you as the memories revive!

Anonymous said...

Could be interesting for your grand-children though.
I remember spending hours trying to lift my bottom teeth way up to the roof of my mouth like I had seen some people do. And get bonus points for bringing them way up to my nose. Never managed of course and thought it was just one of those things children can't do yet and that I would learn in due course. How wise children can be.

Geri Atric said...

LOL! Yes very wise! Was all that childhood struggling to get your teeth up to your nose a premonition of your own toothy future bfb? Or have you still got all your own pearlies?

Geri Atric said...

P.S. Sorry bfb - don't feel you have to answer that! I think my brain is all 'gummed' up today!