Christmas 2007

It's Christmas morning, all the presents are unwrapped, the turkey's in the oven and I hope everyone has had as wonderful of a morning as I have. First of all, we're all feeling human again after everyone in the house having what Aunt Annie calls "The Creepin' Crud". The best part was having Uncle Willard and Aunt Nooie here…it's been so long since we've spent Christmas with them.
My Christmas morning started early this year--around 5 AM, but not with HO HO HO the Jolly Old Elf, but the confusion of one not-so-jolly old elf. It seems that Uncle Willard woke up about 4 AM and when he looked into a mirror, he noticed something didn't look right and upon closer inspection, he realized his teeth, that he was sure he had in his mouth when he went to bed, we no longer there!

He woke Aunt Nooie up announcing he had lost his teeth and the search was on. They searched the living room -- moving cushions and turning over chairs. They then turned to the bedroom tearing everything off the bed, looking under the bed and still, nothing. They repeated the process and during the second search of the bedroom, Aunt Nooie recalled that she had heard on Ripley's Believe it Not, that someone had actually swallowed their false teeth. The more he thought about it, he began to feel a lump in his throat and decided that he had indeed swallowed his top plate! Then the panic began.

It was now 4:30 AM and he woke up Mama and Pop saying, "Rene, get up, you gotta take me to the hospital.". "What's the matter", Pop asked. "I swallowed my teeth." Well, they figured, it being Uncle Willard -- the man who sent his mother to the store to buy dehydrated water -- that he was joking and they laid back down and began to doze back off, only to be woken up a few minutes later buy an even more panicked Uncle Willard urging them to get up. Mama said, "You were serious?". "Yes I'm serious, I swallowed my teeth!" Pop then got up and began dressing at his usual speed and, much to Uncle Willard's amazement, started making a pot of coffee and made Mama a cup of coffee and took it too her. While making the coffee, a thought occurred to Pop and he asked Uncle Willard, "How are you gonna pass that?" to which Uncle Willard replied, "With great difficulty."

Luckily, before they actually left the house, Aunt Nooie found his teeth under the mattress on his side of the bed. When he went to bed, he complained that his mouth was dry and in his sleep he apparently pulled them out and tucked them under the mattress for safe keeping. Unfortunately, I slept through the whole ordeal (I guess if Pop can sleep through a car nearly driving through the house, I can sleep through this). I didn't have a front row seat, but when I woke up about 5:30 in desperate need of coffee, Aunt Nooie asked if they'd woken me up. I said no and she was surprised and told me the story. My reaction? Ya'll know me, what do you think? Let's just say, I'm glad I was standing in a doorway, otherwise I'd have been sitting on the floor. Like Mama said, we may not have had a tree up this year, but is a Christmas morning that will live on forever. Merry Christmas Ya'll!