Beer Garden, Texas Style

You know how cute a 6 year old looks with her front tooth missing?

I don’t look nearly that cute…

Kent and I and Pop met my brothers 3 daughters and their husbands and 1 child at the Abbotsford Tradex Centre for the Fishing and Hunting Outdoors Show. We hadn’t seen any of them for quite a few months so thought it would be a good place to meet up, visit a bit and see the show.

Pop and I were nearly finished lunch when I bit into a french fry and my front tooth veneer popped off. I knew something was wrong before I swallowed, luckily and unobstrusively picked the veneer out and put it in my pocket.

Do you know what a dentist generally does before applying veneers? Me either, but in my case both my front teeth had root canals and both were ground down to just a peg left to hold the veneer. It’s not a pretty sight!

Of course, I was in a panic, but how to tell Pop who is just a tad hard of hearing? If I opened my mouth the whole restaurant would see this gaping black hole and if I mumbled through closed lips, Pop wouldn’t get it and only draw attention to us by saying, “What’s a maller???” in a loud voice.

Luckily for me, he did realize something was wrong and when I got up from the table he said, ‘I’ll just wait here”. Whew - so at least I could go panic in private. Couldn’t find the bathroom of course but dug my cell phone out and called Kent. He was nearby and came right over and started laughing. How mean was that?

I demanded we leave immediately and get me to a dentist. This was FRIDAY afternoon and we were going out to dinner with friends and we have a big family birthday party for my brother Saturday afternoon and evening.

I can’t look like I was conceived in Texas. Of course Kent realized we’d never find an available dentist Friday afternoon at 4 pm, then his phone rang, so he was no more use to me.

Crystal was just as much help when I phoned her. “Mommmmmmmmmm… I’m napping, I can’t get up to find the phone book or make a phone call for you. It’s okay isn’t it, you’re okay aren’t you, you can phone, can’t you?”

Oh, ya, ya - everything’s copacetic - no problem. I can handle looking like a rednecks wife who didn’t do as she was told.

So, I can just keep my mouth shut, right? Nobody will notice. I’ll be a martyr for the day, hang in at the show so no one is inconvenienced.

I went back to find Pop who I’d abandoned and forgotten about. He said, in a very loud voice, when I leaned over to tell him what happened, “OH, YOU LOST YOUR FRONT TOOTH - HA, HA, HA”.

One of my nieces asked if I could use Crazy Glue to stick it back on. Well, I guess so if I had some…

Hey, this was an ‘Outdoors’ show - vendors sell everything! Off we went in search of glue.

To make a long story short, the “Super Glue” worked great. Nurse Tracy glued the veneer on and I requested to be hired for an ad. “Um, we don’t have THAT kind of budget”, the vendor said.

The glue held my veneer on throughout 2 hours in the beer garden and it didn’t poison me yet - works for me!