It was very nearly time for my grandfather's funeral; my momma and her sisters were fixing grandma's hair, putting some makeup on her, getting her ready for the ordeal. My mom asked her mom "You're pretty well fixed up; is there anything else you want or need?"

Granny thought for a second or two, smacked her gums together and said "Oh, I need my teeth!"

So, Dad and I were dispatched to the nursing home where my grandparents had been residing for a year or so since they'd become too ill and old to take care of themselves and needed more close attention and medical care than the family could provide. We had to hurry, because the service would be starting in less than an hour. We enlisted the aid of one of the nurses and she found the false teeth in a cup and we rushed back home.

We gave them to grandma and she popped them in, wiggled her jaw a time or two and then declared as she pulled the dentures out:

"These aren't MY teeth. These are John's teeth!"

Uh oh, we had screwed up. We sped back up to the nursing home, got the head nurse to help us look but we couldn't find them. Another nurse stopped by, wanting to know what we were looking for and she told us that when the funeral home had picked up the body, they had taken his teeth with them. Dad and I looked at each other, both of us thinking the same thing.

Oh no. Grandma's teeth were in Grandpa's mouth.

We went as fast as we could to the funeral home; gramps was just being moved and we asked the funeral director if they had put teeth in. Shielding what he was doing from us, he looked and told us they had. Dad and I looked at each other once again, both of us thinking the same thing but not daring to say it. Maybe, just maybe, we could do the swap, tell (read: "Lie to") grandma that we had found her teeth in their room. We looked at the funeral director, not knowing how to ask. The director read our minds, shook his head and said:

"Not possible, not now."

(at least he didn't say "Not without a crowbar.")

There was nothing left for us to do but to go back and tell grandma. One of the worst days in her life, and we now have to spring THIS on her!

She took it quite well, but I waited a few weeks to tell her what I was thinking at the time:

"Well, gran'ma...now you'll be chewin' on gran'pa for all eternity."

She cackled like a hen, nearly spitting her new dentures out.