Granddaddy’s teeth
Children exploring the forbidden areas of home is only natural. What children have not ventured into their parents’ bedroom and opened the drawer of personal belongings we were forbidden to enter? I remember taking my life into my 6-year-old hands by opening the middle drawer in the chest belonging to my mother. As I carefully opened it slowly and quietly, the smell of her black leather gloves and tubes of lipstick wax would be released and waft up into my senses. The colorful army of small glass bottles of fingernail polish standing at attention would clink together threatening to give me away, and the smell of perfume would fill the air.
One day I got more than I bargained for when I went exploring in my grandparents’ bathroom. I was frightened by a pair of teeth giving me a sinister grin from within a highball glass. The full set of teeth seemed to be snarling at me, and I couldn’t tell whether in anger or in pain. I’d never seen teeth outside the confines of a face, and here with no lips to hide behind, these teeth were separate from a face and staring at me.
My older brother came up behind me and asked, “What are you doing in here?” I pointed to the teeth and he gave me a hard shove. “Quit being stupid. You know those are Granddaddy’s teeth.”
Granddaddy’s teeth? How did Granddaddy’s teeth get out of his mouth and into this glass? How could Granddaddy function with no teeth? My mind began to go wild entertaining the possibilities.
From that day forward I had a healthy fear of my grandmother as well as a suspicious eye. A petite-framed, yet tough woman, I reasoned she had caught Granddaddy with a swift and sudden left hook to the jaw and was not to be trifled with.
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