The Curse of the Pink Blob

There are all kinds of brands, types, flavours and miraculous claims to fame about the variety of dental adhesives available now. Grampa George calls his dental glue, and will use whatever's on sale. Nana insists upon her tried and true favorite brand that barely keeps her teeth in while she's talking. I marvel over how much of it goes down the drain every day.

Grampa George probably swallows most of the dental adhesive he applies to his dentures since over the course of a day he re-applies at least once per meal and again after his afternoon coffee. While others at the table keep their 'eyes on their fries' he won't hesitate to slip out his lower plate to demonstrate that, once again, there's nothing holding it to his gums. He's taken to carrying a tube of 'glue' in his pocket, but I've managed to convince him to apply it to his dentures in the privacy of his bathroom.

Nana could stretch a tube out to last her nearly six months. Once proud of this accomplishment, it opened my eyes to the fact that she'd been applying it so sparingly that it's no wonder her teeth wander around her mouth all day. Now that I'm the one preparing her teeth for adhesion I use a more reasonable amount. The downside of this is the mess of pink refuse that ends up going down the drain. We haven't had a clog yet, but the little knob that lets the sink stopper go down hasn't moved in months. I can't watch most evenings when Nana uses the end of her toothbrush to stab at the globules of pink goo that gather around her sink drain until they've gone down. I can only imagine the millions of sinks swallowing mounds of the stuff every day the way ours does.

Then again, this stuff has been around for decades. And more importantly it plays an absolutely vital role in day to day life at our house. Grampa George and Nana can still enjoy a nice meal because of it. A good set of teeth and some paste to hold them in place make this possible. Meals are events at our house. They are an opportunity to sit, eat and spend some time together marveling over the weather, good or bad, comparing aches and pains or just chewing. Meanwhile, Guten Apetit!