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You too, eh?

I realize I’m getting old: it’s what younger people tell me when I can’t remember something: a word, an address, or maybe my son’s middle name; I know it’s because I’m trying too hard and the answer will come to me as soon as I don’t need it anymore. Age is like that though, but it usually goes unremarked amongst those of us who no longer use tooth whitening strips on the cracked and mottled remainders of our teeth.

There’s a camaraderie amongst us elders; we share so many concerns -at least I do when I meet with the guys for coffee on Wednesday mornings in the Food Court. Although there are no membership requirements, nobody under 70 would find our group interesting however: nobody who isn’t retired and been shooed out of their house by a wife used to some time to herself; nobody who hasn’t been coerced into helping with the housework because he’s obviously not got anything else to do…

I, however, am an aberration: I live alone and get in no one’s way. It’s just that as a novice octogenarian, I find I have nothing better to do on a Wednesday -or most days, for that matter- so if necessary, I am happy to discuss the proper receptacle for dentures at bedtime or, if pressed, what actually comprises a healthy bowel schedule; I fit right in.

I don’t think any subject is too personal if you make it past 70, mind you, but I still have a bit of trouble relating to the group’s dental issues. My father owned his own teeth until his death; it was my mother who didn’t. Teeth were never an issue until she moved into a senior’s care facility and kept losing them in the continually unfamiliar cupboards in her room. She said she put her teeth out of harm’s way when she went to bed each evening so she wouldn’t knock them off the night table if she fell out of bed; she wasn’t clear about why she thought that might happen. At any rate, I knew her dentures were important to her for more than the ability to chew the already cut-up-meat they served in the facility: they were a source of unending entertainment for her. Even though they didn’t fit as snugly as they used to, she resisted getting them adjusted because she enjoyed knocking them about in her mouth if she became bored with the conversation.

But I digress. For the Food Court guys, any changes they’d noticed in themselves over the years were fair game. Wrinkles, bowels, and how many times a night their bladder called to them were their usual go-to topics. If one of them exhibited a sudden denture instability the rest of us would politely avert our eyes while he adjusted things with fingers abruptly seconded to his mouth. At any rate, no dentures ever escaped their lairs, and none of us would even think of asking why somebody had to leave the table for a minute or two.

There were only three guys at our usual table when I arrived the other day; everybody was smiling, no facial fingers were in evidence and nobody was even guffawing. It was evidently a slow day at The Court.

“Do you have trouble chewing?” I heard Jerome, an aging plumber, say as I was about to sit down.

“Trouble chewing doughnuts…? You crazy, Jer?” Andrew was a retired high school teacher, and he sometimes treated us like slow students.

“No, doughnuts are okay, but I never get the ones with nuts on them ‘cause they get stuck in places my tongue can’t dislodge,” Jerome clarified.

“Sorta like a plugged drain in there, eh?” Jagjit, a former shoe salesman, said with a knowing smile and pointed at Jerome’s mouth. “Maybe you need one of those metal snakes you shove through the hole and jiggle around.”

Jerome rolled his eyes and the rest of us giggled. “Stuff doesn’t get stuck like that Jag,” he explained, as if none of us could ever appreciate the finer points of plumbing. “But I often have to grab a few toothpicks at the counter.”

“How many teeth have you got left, anyway?” Jag asked, trying to peer into Jerome’s mouth from across the table.

Jerome shrugged uncomfortably. “Not sure… Okay I’ve lost count, eh? I mean I can still chew stuff, but they wobble a lot; the fillings are a bit loose, I think.”

“Maybe you should see a dentist,” Andrew suggested with a little too much certainty I thought.

“Jerome thinks he should wait,” Jag explained to me, rather more seriously than usual.

I could feel one of my eyebrows raising in confusion. “Wait? Wait for what? Godot…?”

Andrew chuckled at that. “You’re wasting any literary references on them, G.”

“Are teeth the topic du jour again?” I asked, as I rolled my eyes. We all have our secrets, but I was curious if they’d been arguing about teeth before I arrived.

They glanced at each other briefly, no doubt trying to communally translate the French expression, and then Jerome shrugged uncomfortably. “They were telling me that teeth wear out like old cars, and I should consider trading them in for one of the newer models before my old ones break down half way through a steak. The modern dentures apparently improve the bite efficiency -better chewage, or something…”

“The new models might improve your smile, too…” Jag interjected with a pretend-frown. His fingers wandered up to his mouth as he spoke, but he quickly removed them. “No more need for dental adhesives to stop them from sliding around, and stuff.”

Jerome turned to me with a hopeful expression in his eyes, but confusion written on his face. What do you wear, G?”

Involuntarily, my fingers shot up as protectively up to my mouth as Jag’s had to his. It was an important question for them, I suppose; not everybody is born with the good prairie protoplasm my mother used to brag about before she had to move into the Care Home. “I… well, I think we should try to keep what we grew up with as long as they still work, eh? I mean, why spend money on fakes that only pretend to do the same things?”

“So, how do you explain those, G?” Jag’s finger pointed at my ears. “Were you born with them?”

I think I blushed as I self-consciously adjusted the position of the wire from one of my hearing aids.

Sometimes you can learn humility as well as gossip in a Food Court…

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