A QUICK "MUM" STORY

While visiting daughter's home on Saturday evening (it was her hubby's birthday and he cooked our dinner) I remembered something that happened to mum when I was about 11-12 years old

From when I was about 8 we went to Mandurah every year for 2 weeks holiday at Christmas and again over Easter.

Mandurah House was a lovely old guest house just across the road from the Mandurah Estuary and this particular year mum and dad had one of the front bedrooms with french doors that opened onto the upstairs verandah.

Mum was nearly 35 when I arrived on the scene and I can't ever remember her not having false teeth but perhaps she had her own teeth when I was quite young.  Anyway for as long as I could remember she always cleaned her teeth at night and then popped them into a glass of water till morning.

On the night in question she went through the same routine, off went the light and off they went to sleep.  Next morning they awoke and mum went to pop her teeth into her mouth but.....NO TEETH!
Only water in the glass but NO TEETH!  She said she and dad searched everywhere in the room to no avail when one of them decided to open the big drawer at the bottom of the wardrobe as it was their last resort.

In the drawer....THE TEETH!!  It had been a very warm night so they had decided to sleep with the french door partly open as no airconditioning in those days, not even an electric fan.  It was thought (maybe there were telltale traces) a water rat had come into the room after climbing onto the verandah and for some unknown reason taken the teeth from the glass of water and deposited them in the drawer.  Although the drawer closed at the front there was a gap at the back where a rat could easily have had access.

Needless to say mum was horrified but those teeth had to go back in her mouth that morning.  A hasty early trip down to the big kitchen and the teeth were popped into a saucepan of water which was brought to the boil and when they cooled down they were popped back into mum's mouth and she suffered no ill effects.

I think from then on mum either kept the teeth in her mouth while still in Mandurah or they were put in a safe place.  I know occasionally she would shudder when thinking of where those teeth had been.  The story was recounted to other guests who thought the whole thing hilarious but apparently mum wasn't convinced it was all that funny.