I teach music.
I play piano for dancers.
I run errands for little old ladies
and tutor a boy with autism.
And that is just what I do for work.
My repertoire of what I do for fun is just as varied:
writing, weight-training, playing in bands,
spending hours practicing music or hours trekking through the woods.
But this past week, I added a new activity to my list of random undertakings:
I repair dentures.
I was visiting an older lady, sitting at her kitchen table eating lunch from McDonald's when she suddenly halted. Putting a hand cautiously to her mouth, her eyes widened as she rose from the table. "I think my teeth just broke," she mumbled, panic in her voice as she hurried towards the bathroom. She had been extremely cautious with her chewing for two weeks, afraid her old, cracked dentures would completely break before the dentist finished making her new ones.
Only a few seconds later, she returned from the bathroom, holding something in one hand and frantically waving her other arm. "They broke! They broke!" she called out, wild-eyed. "Call the dentist! Call him and tell him I've got to come in RIGHT NOW, and he's got to fix this because you have to leave at 2:00! We've gotta call him NOW!"
"Okay. It's okay," I said, walking towards her telephone, thinking: He won't get you in right now though. I know how doctors and dentists work.
"Do you have his phone number?" I asked calmly. "I'll call him. We'll figure out what to do." I felt really bad for her, knowing how much it would bother her to go around without her teeth and, furthermore, how would she eat? Plus, I sympathized that she'd had to endure the process of getting dentures in the first place. I'm one of those people who has that recurring nightmare that my teeth are breaking or falling out, then wake up rushing my hands to my mouth to make sure they are still there. I suddenly felt immensely grateful that the worse thing I have to wear right now is a dorky bite splint.
When the dental receptionist answered the phone, I explained the predicament and she said, "Oh no! They broke? But honey, he just left for the afternoon, and he's going to be out all next week too." She paused momentarily then continued with a question I wasn't expecting:
"ARE YOU GOOD WITH YOUR HANDS?"
"What? Who? Me?" I asked and had the mental image of my hands shoved inside the mouth of this panic-stricken older lady, and I almost answered automatically,
"No! No! Not good with my hands at all. I can't do anything with my hands. All thumbs!"
Then I remembered that since her teeth were sitting on the kitchen counter, I most likely would not need to do any probing around in her mouth. Besides, what was I supposed to do---say to this distraught old woman, "Oh, your whole set of top teeth just broke in half? Too bad," and continue eating my french fries? So---very slowly---I asked the woman on the phone, "What do I need to do?"
After receiving detailed instructions, I returned to the kitchen and asked,
"So--- do you have any super-glue?"
Yep, that's what I did. Fortunately, she had cleaned and sanitized her dentures by the time I returned. Just as the receptionist had told me, I practiced fitting the pieces together a few times before applying the glue. I meticulously painted the edges of the denture pieces with the tiny super-glue brush, as if I was an artist creating a masterpiece. "Like Monet," I thought, since French Impressionism is my favorite.
"Okay," I announced when I finally had the pieces fitting together. "Just let them set for a while 'til the glue hardens," I told her.
"Huh?" she asked, her ears not working any better than her teeth.
"Let them set a while."
"What?"
"LET THEM SET!"
"Oh, okay. Thanks." Then she continued with a comment that kind of made me want to laugh and kind of made me want to throw up:
"Now go ahead and finish your french fries."
I looked at my pile of half-eaten french fries on the table and the white set of chompers facing them from the kitchen counter, barely a few feet away.
(I didn't finish them.)
So the next time I get my business cards printed, I plan to make this addition:
Keyboardist/
Music Teacher/
Blogger/
Tutor/
Caregiver/
Denture Repairs....
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