Teeth are optional eqipment?

Interesting morning, this morning.  Well, interesting might be a stretch, but here's the thing. I embark on my daily commute and begin to plan 2 necessary stops that I have to make before I get to work.  I look at the clock and all seems doable.  I have the car radio on mostly for background noise and for some reason I hear the word "teeth" in the discussion.  "Teeth"....

I make my first stop to get some fuel.  As I pull up to the pump, I noticed a familiar face.  It takes me a minute or two to place the guy but I knew this was someone that I used to talk to on a regular basis.  "Hey Brice" he says excitedly with a completely toothless grin.  The words "holy shit, dude" almost parted my lips but at the last second I traded those words for, "Hey Man, how are you?"

I'm assuming it was obvious that he knew I had forgotten his name from the look on his face.  It was like he was trying to mouth his name as I was talking.  Maybe it was obvious to him from the look on my face, but he misunderstood that look.  The look on my face was all about, "what in the hell happened to your teeth?".  He says something along the lines of "long time no see" and all I could think about was "yeah, long time no see a God damned dentist."

Seriously.  I was appalled at the appearance of this guys oral situation.  His situation wasn't even as good as "summer teeth".  (Pronounced "some are teeth", but some are stumps.)  I shit you not, every hockey player I have ever met in person has more teeth in better shape than this guy.  I mean, I feel for this guy.  Something went awry and it apparently happened for a good long time.

I shook this man's hand.  I looked at his hand.  Not that he had a recent manicure, but the man's hand was in far better shape than his teeth.  I figured he'd have run his hand across a band saw blade or something, but nope.  All digits were where they were supposed to be and of an adequate length I determined by the size of the rest of his hand.  He goes on to tell me that he spent the last few years in Arizona doing construction but was on his way up to Montana for the summer.  He had a great job lined up outside of Glacier National Park.  I congratulated him but quickly excused myself because I had to make my next stop and still get to work on time.  I told him to "look me up" if he gets back around this area and then I thought I should get my name out of all of the phone directories.

I pull back on to the highway shaking my head.  I cannot remember the guys name for the life of me, but I'll never forget this guys toothless grin.  It was something out of a Tim Burton movie.  Nonetheless, I trudge on with the last leg of the daily commute.  I get to my last stop, so I park the car and head in.  There were guys having a conversation, and the guy facing me had a jacked up set of teeth!  His oral situation was such that his speech was impaired.  As I watched him talk, I watched copious amounts of spittle fly out of his yap and at the same time watched the guy he was talking too duck and weave like Mike Tyson did in his 20's.  (What's worse than getting spit on?  Getting spit on by a guy with shitty teeth!)




I chuckle to myself and head in doors.  I grabbed a bottle of my favorite morning beverage and noticed a guy on the other side of the cooler.  He was in there stocking his wares, but we made eye contact so I said "Hey" like I normally do and he countered with, "How are you today?".  Nothing wrong with that right?  Guess what?  Shitty teeth.  Now this level of shitty was different from the previous shitty teeth.  It appears as of he had the appropriate amount of teeth, but they all looked like they were installed side ways or maybe even upside down or something.

Anyhow, it turns out that this particular store didn't have a product I was looking for so I headed across the street.  Now I need to clarify something.  Anyone can have a messed up grille for any number of reasons.  I wore braces to fix my chompers when I was a kid, and I certainly had some messed up teefies.  I've got no real issue with teeth, but the overwhelming abundance of jacked up smiles was getting to me this morning.

So I step into this other store and walk straight to the counter.  Nobody around.  I stand there patiently for about 3 minutes, then decide to go look for someone.  Out of nowhere steps this woman who promptly says, "can I help you?" .  I think I shook my head while asking for the product I was looking for.  This persons front teeth resembled a train track where the 405 had just derailed.  One front tooth stuck straight out... not a little.  I mean straight out and a good distance from her gums.  The tooth next to that one was considerably smaller and slightly pushed back.  If this were for a specific purpose, it must have been for capturing and holding prey. 

Now, all I can think of is all of these unfortunate souls.  "$5.14" she says, as if she said it twice before.  As I reach for my wallet, I fumble it and it lands on the floor.  As I bend over to pick it up, I bumped my head on this ill placed beef jerky display.  Now, that made me laugh because nobody I talked too today was in the physical condition to eat any beef jerky.  As I stood up, I was hoping that I hit my head hard enough that I hoped I somehow knocked this dream out of existence.  Nope...  didn't happen.

I immediately apologize, for what I'm not sure.  I manage to hand her $6 as I pocket my purchase.  She tells me, ".78 cents is your change" and I had to giggle because I sounded remotely like one of the kooky characters from H. R. Puffinstuff.  I thanked her and parted ways rather ungracefully, really.

In the safety of my own vehicle, a shine of sorts.... I prayed that the rest of my day be filled with people with whole sets of teeth in relatively decent shape.  As I pulled into work, a friend threw a snowball at me and hit me right in the mouth.  No damage to speak of, but I quit laughing about peoples teeth.... or the lack there of.