My Wife As A bicycle (extracts)

Teeth
As a  kid growing up in Dublin in the late seventies and eighties, one of the strongest images which has plagued my mind for years is that of my father's teeth or the lack of them. You see he lost all his teeth througth gum disease and lack of dental care and all that. When he would come home from work on his green bike more of less in an Irish working class catholic humour. He would whip out his mouth and he would age twenty years as if he just fell of his horse in Tir na Og. The teeth would subsequently be dropped in a small rectanglar plasic cup smelling of bleech and left in the middle of table beside the salt and pepper. When the door bell rang there was a scoffle more or less like that of an english pub when words have been exchanced about somebody elses wife, and my father would dive across the kitchen table and his face would light up with new found youth.  

-good morning father,
-good morning Mr Pierce and how are the children today,
-fine, fine well the small one is bit sick today-we'll ye have a cup tea father,
-I saw the family at mass on Sunday and what time was it,
-ah I forget father sure we're never out of the place,
-and don't I know it,
-keep the faith and up the Dubs...
The door would bang and my father would cry out to my mother,
the priest is on his rounds again ye'll have to hurry if you want a mass said for your father.
Getting back to the teeth, like all good things they would have to go missing, well to be exact just the bottom set. I think they went missing for a week. They were found in the dog box,  Cloe our yorkshire terrier the size of an apple was caugth red handed caressing his mollors with her tongue.

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