The Lady Who Gummed a Burger

Once upon a time – meaning Sunday – an elderly couple settled into a nice booth near the front of the restaurant.  They ordered two iced teas and a short time later ordered lunch.  Lunch was fish and chips for the gentleman and a big, juicy burger for the lady.  With fries.  Now I’m going to make it clear that we only serve half-pound burgers.  In addition, our behemoth burgers don’t come with fries but rather come with your choice of bake beans, coleslaw or potato salad.  Fries, at our store at least, will cost you an extra fifty cents because most people can’t handle all that food anyway.  All of that background information serves the purpose of proving just how impressed I was with this rather frail looking woman manhandling a giant burger and taking no effing prisoners.

It was only after their meal had ended and the couple had made their way back into the Montana cold that I really understood how impressive, and disturbing, the burger eating had actually been.  As I moved her nearly empty plate to begin busing the table, I was greeted by the upper-half of her smile staring up at me.  She had left her dentures right there on the table.

So do you come here often?  CREDIT.

My first reaction was utter disgust.  Here were a woman’s teeth just hanging out on the table under the edge of her plate.  She hadn’t even placed them on a napkin like I did with my retainer when I was fifteen.  That would make sense.  Instead, the elderly woman had taken out her slobbery teeth and just let them rest on a table in a busy restaurant.  Germs apparently weren’t a consideration.

After getting over my initial reaction of disgust, I began to contemplate how I should go about removing the dentures from the table and what to do with them anticipating the couple’s return for the rather important item.  I finally decided to go in with a paper towel and a plate and go after her teeth like a man.  Just so you know, even with a paper towel it is not an enjoyable task to pick up a pair of someone else’s dentures.  They felt warm and slippery and altogether unpleasant.  I would place it on the same level as picking up dog shit with a plastic bag.  I don’t care who you are or how many dogs you’ve owned, no one likes feeling poop on the other side of a thin layer of plastic.  Dentures easily fall in this category.

Once I’d finally worked up the courage to get the dentures on a plate and safely to the office, I had time to truly appreciate what an incredibly feat gumming a half-pound burger is.  That takes some serious skill.  This woman didn’t even go in with a knife and fork.  She picked that bad boy up and managed to decimate it without a full set of teeth.  And I didn’t even notice until I was left to pick her dentures up from the table.  Kudos, old lady.

The next time someone complains about our burgers being too big, I will suppress the urge to compare them to a toothless old woman who knows how to get shit done.  I will similarly suppress the urge to laugh at them and tell them that they – and their teeth – are not as awesome as they think they are.  Unfortunately, regaling my guests with a story involving picking up someone else’s dentures is not exactly appropriate mealtime conversation – no matter how incredible that story is.  This will just have to be an inside joke between you and me.

And don’t worry; she came back for her teeth.