Scene: Two hospitable maiden aunts in their late 80's regularly have cousins and nephews to stay. This is an overheard half of a telephone conversation.
Aunt Lizzie (86):
My dear, I’m so embarrassed, I can hardly bring myself to tell you about it. We had such a busy weekend! Rosie and the twins came to stay, and then at the last minute Daphne rang and said she was in England and would be in the area, and could she come. Well of course we were delighted to see her – she’s such a shy person, isn’t she?
She’s got a very bad leg poor thing, and it was obvious she wasn’t going to manage the stairs, so I gave her my room downstairs. She insisted she could manage, but of course she couldn’t. And besides, her eyesight is terrible, she’d have tripped or something. Maggie (88) offered hers too, but it was going to be too complicated, what with all those little bottles of medication she has lined up on the dressing-table, and her commode and everything. So I just moved a few things over – it was only going to be one night after all.
I went to bed late. I was catching up on the old newspapers (you won’t believe it but I’ve nearly finished the ones I’d kept from the 1990’s! I know…! well, I’m getting there). Anyway, I suddenly remembered that I’d left my teeth in the glass on my night-table but it was too late to do anything about it. On the Sunday morning Daphne didn’t say anything about it, and she left about lunchtime.
Later when everybody had left I moved my things from the spare room upstairs back down to my own room, and my dear, you’ll never guess. My dentures were still in the glass on the night-table, but the water level had gone down because they were slightly above the water...
I dissolve a special tablet in the glass to clean them, so it must have tasted simply awful, even though she couldn’t have drunk much of it.
I just won’t know what to say when she rings to thank us. What do you think?
-oOo-
