Adventures with Dentures.

I have always found the senior citizens cinema show on Wednesday mornings to be an ideal venue for widow-shopping. It’s a cheap morning out for an elderly widower, £5.99 for a top feature film plus coffee and biscuits, and is generally patronised by that better class of widow who seems particularly susceptible to my old-fashioned charms. One needs to be alive to one’s opportunities, of course, and it was my quick thinking, watching a screening of ’Atonement’, that allowed me to ingratiate myself with Daphne Murgatroyd.
            My opportunity arose during that scene in which Keira Knightley and James McAvoy are tangling steamily in the library. The audience, enthralled, was engaged in a tense bout of communal heavy breathing, when the moment was shattered by a loud embarrassed giggle from the woman sitting next to me. This giggle elicited much foot shuffling and self-righteous ‘shushing’ and ‘tutting’, and I was aware of my unfortunate neighbour making a futile attempt to fold herself up inside her tip-up seat. I seized my chance and patted her arm comfortingly. “Please don’t distress yourself, my dear” I whispered, “you are obviously a lady of some sensitivity and refinement, so please don’t let the reactions of these rude and uncultured people upset you.”
             Daphne, as she later introduced herself, smiled at me gratefully through the gloom, and I followed up my first advance at intervals throughout the film so that afterwards she gladly accepted my offer of a two-for-one pub lunch at the Slug and Lettuce, an investment on my part of £22.30, (plus tip). We had a pleasant couple of hours getting to know each other, and then went back to my room at the Happy Haven Retirement Home on the pretext of tea and biscuits.
            I smuggled Daphne in through the side door in order to avoid an unpleasant confrontation with my friend, Miss Lashley, (room 10) who for some time had been under the extraordinary misapprehension that she exercised some kind of proprietorial rights over me. However, we reached my room without incident and I put the kettle on.
            You must understand that I am now eighty-nine years of age and I have neither the time nor the attention span to faff around with the niceties of courting or wooing, or whatever they call it now. I also had my lunch investment of £22.30, (plus tip) to protect, plus the £5.99 outlay for the cinema, so I made my move even before the kettle had boiled, tentatively embracing Daphne as she stood gazing through my window.

            To my surprise, her response was so positive that the fervour of her kiss dislodged my upper denture right at the very moment that I was gasping for air. The denture shot to the back of my throat, temporarily choking me, and Daphne, alarmed by the discovery of an unrestrained foreign body in my mouth, sprang away from me with a frightened cry and toppled backwards over my footstool.

            Our cries of distress attracted the attention of Polish Petra, my confidante and favourite staff member, who burst into the room followed by a furious Miss Lashley and a twittering gaggle of rubbernecking residents.

            “Ohmygod, Granpappy Georgie,” said Petra, as she surveyed the carnage, “you’ve really done it this time haven’t you?”

            I had

            The paramedics put Daphne in a surgical collar and carried her to the ambulance on a stretcher. Although she had by now regained consciousness, she didn’t wish me goodbye, nor offer thanks for her free lunch, so I assumed that our brief relationship was at an end, as was, I was vociferously informed, my association with Miss Lashley. I suppose that’s another £25.80 (plus tip) down to experience.

            Miss Starkey, the Happy Haven manager, made me pack my things, and confined me to my room until my daughter, Estelle, arrived from London, a three hour drive away. I can understand that Estelle was not well pleased, and that coming so far at such short notice may have been marginally inconvenient, but was there really any need to be so sour-faced and judgmental?  I am her father, after all.
            Lengthy discussions then ensued, with the Starkey woman demanding that Estelle remove me from the Happy Haven forthwith, but she, threatened with the extinction of life as she knew it, flatly refused. The local authority then became involved, but when it was disclosed that I had been excluded from four homes in the previous six years, they declined to negotiate further.

            It was then decided that I should be placed under twenty-four hour surveillance at the Happy Haven for a period of three calendar months, on the firm understanding that at the end of that period I must solemnly undertake to stay out of trouble, or permanently relocate to the comfort of a High Street shop doorway. So, as winter was approaching and having little inclination to pursue a life in the Great Outdoors, I reluctantly acquiesced.

                                                                     *  

            During my surveillance period I took stock of the events that had landed me in lumber with Estelle and Starkey. It was obvious that the whole sorry incident was down to my wayward denture and I urgently needed to eliminate the possibility of further malfunctions. The trouble is, I have an irrational fear of dentists and have to be straight-jacketed to be in the same room with one.

            Typing the word ‘dentures’ in to my device revealed a multitude of options, mostly of the arm-and-a-leg variety, thus rendering a conventional replacement denture completely out of the question. However, I was quite taken by an advert for theatrical teeth, at £25 .99, (plus postage) which looked quite presentable in comparison to my own, and I sent for them, along with a set of fun dentures which I thought might entertain my fellow Happy Haven inmates.

            The theatrical teeth, predictably, were not up to the job, being even more ill-fitting than my own. I persevered for a day or two but there were several occasions when they embedded themselves in the more solid morsels of food and became completely detached from my gums, causing Madeline Galsworth, (Room 19) who sits opposite me in the dining room, to have some sort of hysterical trauma attack.

            Strangely, the fun teeth proved a much better fit and a very effective mastication tool, although as they were of varying lengths and pointed in all directions, they were not aesthetically pleasing and the vampire canines were on display even when my mouth was closed. However, I had two enjoyable days intimidating the more nervous female residents until Starkey confiscated them and reminded me of my final warning status.

            I was now dentally back to square one, so I consulted Polish Petra, who has more than once extracted me from the soft stuff.

            “You’re in luck, Georgie-boy,” says she, “my boyfriend, Bogslaw, was a student dentist in Krakow and will fix your denture at mates–rates and throw in any other work that might be needed.”

            This surprised me. “I thought Bogslaw was a plumber’s mate, he was here recently fixing pipes in the staff bog as I remember?”

            Petra shrugged, impatiently. “Here in UK he is a plumber’s mate, because the stupid dentist bosses do not agree that being not-quite–qualified in Krakow is good enough for drilling and filling the teeth of the up-their-own-backside pensioners in la-de-da Worcester. He has all his kit with him and has been doing no-questions emergency work for all the kebab shop and car wash illegals in the area.”

 

            I had a mental flash of Bogslaw assaulting the pipes in the staff bog with his rampant hacksaw, and shuddered.

            “Thanks, but no, Petra. I think, I’ll leave Bogslaw, to practise for his final exams on others. Anyway, where does he operate? He doesn’t have a license or a consulting room. And what about anaesthetic for extractions and stuff?”

            “He works in our flat, in the bathroom. We have a reclining chair in there, and the patients are tough dudes. A few slugs of cherry vodka usually does the job, and if it’s a difficult extraction, arms strapped down and a knee in the chest always sorts it.”

            “Thanks,” I said, “I’ll pass.”

            So that’s what happened to the reclining chair that disappeared from the Residents lounge. I’ll keep that in mind should Polish Petra ever become awkward.

            There is, of course, a solution to every problem, and I’m only surprised I didn’t think of it earlier.

            While phoning Estelle`1, I suggested that my upper denture, still causing problems, could result in more erratic behaviour that would endanger my final warning status and result in my expulsion from the Happy Haven, thus leaving me homeless.
            She took the point immediately.

            My new denture will be ready in a week.