Roberts: Chat with a toothless gentleman

I love strangers I meet in doctor's waiting rooms who immediately trust me with their medical history, innermost secrets and often, it seems, their entire life story.

You can be waiting for the doctor feeling sorry for yourself, and by the time someone ladles out their bucket of bad luck, you feel like making a run for the elevator and skipping rope as it descends.

It was my good fortune one day to sit down next to my most memorable waiting-room talker. It gave me a new grip on life. His health history was so full of close calls with death that I forgot why I had come to the doctor.

He was completely toothless, but while he talked non-stop to me, he chewed on a big thumb-sized wad of gum. Now and then it would pop like a mouth firecracker or one of those huge bubbles Chipper Jones blows after he's hit a triple and is standing on third base.

He told me about all the operations he's had, and I concluded he must be as empty as a December gourd. His gall bladder was gone as well as his appendix. He'd lost 14 inches of his colon and had a triple bypass. Finally, he summarized, "But neighbor, the thing I miss most of all is my teeth."

I told him that surprised me and he said, "Just look at me." He quit chewing his gum for a second and got right up in my face with his chin almost touching his nose. He looked like Cousin Jody on the Grand Ole Opry who walked around flashing his gums and touching his nose with his chin as he made wild sounds on a lap steel suspended from his neck.

"See what I mean?" he said; " I look goofy! And false teeth don't help at all. They just make clacking sounds like a man shaking dice in his hand right before he throws 'em."

Trying not to laugh -- after all, the man was stone serious -- I said, "I believe the thing I'd feel worse about would be that open heart surgery."

"Nothing to it," he quickly responded. "I was out walking the halls the next morning and had eggs, gravy and biscuits for breakfast. It was probably the gravy that stopped up my arteries in the first place."

My inner songwriting imp kicked in, and as soon as I got home I couldn't help but write a song for the old boy in case he ever wants to compete with Cousin Jody. Naturally the title is "I Miss My Teeth."

"Oh how I miss my teeth. I lost 'em, and that cost me my job. I can't eat an apple, and how I miss my corn on the cob. My Sweetie won't give me sugar any more, she says it feels unnatural and strange. The best I can get is a peck on the cheek. Lord, I really mss my teeth. I sung Jimmie Rodgers songs for years but I can't do the yodel any more. My tongue just makes a splutter that flitters away -- Jimmie would turn over in his grave. As of today, I've lost my darling wife. All alone I'll gum my way through life. No molars, no bicuspids, just pecks upon my cheeks. Lord, I really miss my teeth."

E-mail Dalton Roberts at DownhomeP@aol.com