The Case of The Missing Teeth

"Care for a cup of Teeth?"

Completing a meal at a local restaurant, I heard Mom say something about her teeth. In total disbelief, I saw her take her top dentures out and plop them into her cup of coffee. Immediately I insisted that she take them out of the cup and put them back in her mouth. We then proceeded to prepare to leave the restaurant.

Later that evening, my husband and I were enjoying an old family sitcom about a father and daughter who ventured into the woods to pick edible herbs for his daughter's school assignment. When they returned back home the daughter said "I can't find my assignment papers!" She suddenly realized that she left them in the woods 30 miles away. That night a storm was approaching, but her father insisted on going back into the woods to retrieve his daughter's papers. Coincidentally, that very night I heard the sound of Mom opening and closing the dresser drawers. “Mom, what are you looking for?” “I can’t find my teeth!”

I just stood there staring at her while my brain took a minute to process what my ears were hearing. I did a rapid rewind back to the restaurant. "Mom!" I said, dreading her answer. "Did you put your teeth back in while we were in the restaurant?" She grinned showing gaps of missing bottom teeth. That's all we need, disappearing denture drama. Suddenly it occurred to me that when I turned my attention to pay for our meal, she must have plopped her bottom dentures also in her coffee cup. "Oh no..." I thought cringing, "and that was four hours ago!"

I rushed to call the restaurant hoping and praying that by some miracle a kind person found her dentures in the coffee cup and put them aside. To my relief the person who waited on us was still there and she did in fact find them and held on to them for us. With only ten minutes to spare before the restaurant closed, Angelo and I drove into the night to get back the tossed teeth. Whew! The waitress gave them to us nicely wrapped up in gauze while laughing, “Girl" she said, "I’m glad that I saw these. I have a pair myself, so I know that these things ain’t cheap!” She got that right! Now I know better. 

I read somewhere that it's common for someone with dementia to lose their dentures. With memory loss comes denture loss. Whenever I take her out to eat, prior to leaving the restaurant, The first thing I now will ask is, “Do you have everything, including your teeth?”

Keywords: jokes about missing teeth , funny stories about false teeth, denture humor, lighthearted blogs about aging

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The First Man I Ever...

 

"My Forever Love"

I remember reading a family reunion planning article titled "The Walk of Your Life." It included a scene from one of my favorite movies, about man who experienced the loss of his wife and the mother of his children. They all had a dire need to reconnect to her and to each other, so they decided to do something rather odd. They took a walk.  But not just any walk. It was the walk of their lives. The father took his children to a street in town where he first met their mother. They walked to a restaurant where they sat at the very same table where their dad met is future wife for the very first time. The children heard a touching story of how their parents fell in love right then and there. 

I imagined merging the present with the past by taking such a walk with my parents.  To see, touch and hear my parents romantic story come to life right before my eyes in a way I never experienced before.  Maybe that's what my mother has been trying to do in her later years.

To the consternation of her children my mother has had the habit of talking about how she met my father in her early years while living in New York City. The story often follows when the family decides to focus on someone's wedding anniversary or someone is describing a nice trip they took - she would interrupt and say, "Me and Donnie used to do that too." (Names are changed to protect the innocent.) "He was my first love. The first man I ever made love to."  

Mom would even tell total strangers her story whether they cared to listen or not. But when she interjected her story at a family gathering the males of the family would laugh and protest, "Mom, please stop! We don't want to hear the details of your love life!" But she ignores their desperate hand-over-the-ears plea for mercy and keep plowing on with her story.  Her words, "He was the first man to ever...", would quickly be followed by... "Augh, please, no Mom!!!"

If the sounds of agony from the guys were not enough, she often got the stories of her husband mixed up with those about a later boyfriend. So, when she says, "Donnie and I met at our workplace.” The women of the clan would chime in with, "Mom, that wasn't how you met Dad, that was how you met your boyfriend, Daryl." At the same time my poor brother would double over, acting like someone's fingernails were scratching down the surface of a chalk board. Me, my sister, my aunt and the rest of the girls are more than happy to help her piece back together her love story. After all, she only has one true love story to tell. 

So Mom, you go on trying to remember your story. We're here ready to take that stroll with you down the streets of New York City in 1958 and experience 'the walk of your life' together.

Keywords: funny love stories, young love, funny memories about youth, embarrassing family situations, aging comedy, aging humor

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