Like pulling teeth

I was just reminded tonight of something
that happened to me long, long ago in a
county far, far away. My buddy Danny
is getting his wisdom teeth pulled Tuesday
and he was wondering how hard it is to pull
teeth out of someone's head.

During the end of my baby teeth days, I was
spending the night at my grandma's house in
scenic, rural Harrison County somewhere
between Logan and Neola. I had this tooth
that was "just dangling by a thread." It drove
my grandmother nuts. She was not one of those
bake a batch of cookies and tell you a story about
the good old days grandmothers. She was one of
those tell there are ghosts upstairs so stay out of
the attic and make fun of you because you were
fat type grandmothers. Oddly enough, this is one
of my more fond memories of her.

Anywho, Francis gets tired of watching me play
with this tooth and decides she's gonna yank it.
"It's just hanging there, you won't even feel it,
you big baby." I didn't want her to do it but she
pretty much insisted. Maybe she was afraid I'd
choke on it in my sleep, but I doubt it. She never
said as much any way. She sits me in one of her
canary yellow kitchen chairs, the vinyl kind with
the metal tube legs. She leans my head back, grabs
my tooth with a solid grip, fingers wrapped in a red
handkerchief. This grip was hardcore. She was
mostly right. One good solid extremely painful
yank and that tooth came out of my head
accompanied by a blood flow that seemed kind of
excessive considering my tooth had been just
hanging there by a thread.

I was a bit in shock, the experience hurt more
than I expected and my mouth was full of that
salty irony blood taste. I tongued where the missing
tooth was supposed to be and was more than a bit
surprised to find that not only was it not gone it was
just as dangly as it had been previously.

I started screaming what is known in my family as
"bloody murder." Francis had a chagrined look on her
face. I think she knew she wasn't going to live this one
down for a few years. She wasn't even sure if that tooth
was a baby tooth or not so the damage might have been
permanent. She felt kind of bad and did that sort of half-
assed apologize while trying not to laugh sort of thing
while I swished salt water around in my mouth sticking
my tongue in the freshly made hole in my gums. This
was just about the only time I ever had the upper hand
on Francis so I was pretty glad to make all of it that I could.

So these days when people ask about funny grandma
stories or painful childhood injury stories, I pull out this
little gem and sigh thinking about the good old days.