Warning: this is a rather involved story told from a hazy memory which will at last come to a point. I think.
So I have had dentures for almost as long as I had my real teeth. In fact, the only thing I remember about my real teeth is that I often had toothaches.
Early on, I was in the habit of never taking them out and finally got in the habit of just taking out the lower plate.
Now you're thinking of asking me "why" aren't you? Well don't. Because I certainly don't know the reason for many of the things I do and this is one of those.
Anyways, we lived in this house in Newark, AR that had been seriously neglected by the previous tenants. There were issues that we had to address and one of the strange things was that there seemed to be shadowy movements, like out of the corner of your eye, but nothing definite.
At that time I would take out the lowers at bedtime and maybe place them on the nightstand. Who can remember that far back?!?
So one night, we had been partying (you may interpret that in any way you wish), and I stumbled to bed, taking out the lowers and putting them in the pocket of the flannel shirt I was wearing, which I took off and dropped on the floor.
Now if you have "partied" much at all, you know that the events of the previous evening might not always be crystal clear in your memory.
So I was annoyed but not too surprised when, next morning, these teeth were not in my shirt pocket. Like maybe I just thought I put them there. But where I did put them exactly was a mystery so I had to soldier on without them.
This was inconvenient but not life-shattering. People who "party" a lot tend to be more Zen in their attitude about such things.
To backtrack, we suspected a rodent problem. So we put out rat baits which consisted of these blue crystalline nuggets. Which were disappearing fairly rapidly so we kept putting them out, supposing I guess that there were lots of these rats who were conveniently going out side to die.
This is where it really gets hazy so bear with me.
For some reason (and I can't even think of a reason) I was looking in the cabinet under the kitchen sink. Situated right beside it was a non-functiong dishwasher. There was a hole in the side of this perhaps like an inspection plate and glancing there I caught a glimpse of blue.
Looking closer I saw that the whole floor under the dishwasher was completely covered with the anti-rat nuggets. It appears the little devils had not been eating them at all, but carrying them off to make a (not) comfy bed out of them.
Perched on top of this pile of rat poison was the missing lower plate. I boiled it before I stuck it back in my mouth.
You would think this would be the end of the story but the funniest part occurred years later when I related this incident to my little Yankee buddy, Dan Haw.
He laughed so hard and so long that I thought I had killed him from laughing.
When he finally settled down and wiped away his tears, he explained that the thing that had struck him most about this tale was the image of a huge rat wearing my teeth (uppers and lowers) and smiling and going "Hotchaa!".
We never did see any of those rats, by the way.
