Bones. Teeth. Dinner.

My wife is a big fan of the show "Bones" and I've seen quite a few episodes. Most of the time, the ones I see are in syndication, which means they're aired between 6 and 7 pm. An unfortunate consequence of this timing is that as putrid, maggot-infested flesh is falling off a human skeleton on my television, I am in the process of eating a nice rice and bean burrito covered in salsa, or perhaps some angel hair pasta and marinara.

It's pretty disgusting as crime dramas go, and it makes me very thankful that smell isn't yet one of the senses involved in watching a television show. If it ever does become a component of the entertainment experience, say, like 3D, it would not be a good thing for a show like Bones to include. Or a show like The Biggest Loser, now that I think about it.

Anyway, the last episode of Bones I happened to see is one in which they find a body being tumbled to pieces in an industrial front-loading clothes washer. After they stopped the washer, the pieces continued dropping from the top of the drum with soft "plop, plop" sounds, until a new low was reached and a testicle bounced out onto the floor. I don't think I watched the entire episode, but the whole washing machine bit stuck with me.

A few days later, I was doing a little wash of my own. I took some clothes out of the dryer, and saw what looked like a piece of gum stuck to one of the dryer vanes way in the back. (OK, I admit it. Occasionally, I've been known to forget to take my gum out of my pocket and once in a great while a piece will make it to the dryer and subsequently ruin of bunch of my shit or, god forbid, some article of clothing that my wife purchased for $300.00 an ounce. So I always stick my head in there and give it a look. You know. To hide any evidence.)

I reached up to grab the gum, and it felt a little...harder...than gum would normally be. That's because something was stuck to it:

Yes. An effing TOOTH. I immediately thought of that Bones episode. My tongue went instinctively to my molars. Nope. All there. I checked again, just because I was a little skeeved out.

I stood there, tooth in hand, and tried to think of a reasonable explanation. My wife's 90-year-old grandfather had swallowed one of his own teeth not too long ago, and other shit from bridges to babylon was always falling out of his mouth. Maybe it was one of his.

"Should I call him?" I wondered. "Ask him if he has any new unexplained gaps in his gums that he didn't think were there last week?"

I sent a text to my wife that said, "I feel like I'm in an episode of Bones. I found a fucking TOOTH in the dryer!" My thought here was that maybe she had been carrying around one of her grandfather's teeth that she found under his living room chair or something, and it had made its way into our laundry.

She sent me a text back that said, "Did you lose one?" I did another quick inventory. I couldn't help myself. One of my worst recurring nightmares is one in which my teeth fall out. Nope. No gaps. Where the hell did this tooth come from? I didn't remember killing a drifter.

Then I looked down at the pile of clothes that I had pulled out of the dryer and saw what I refer to as my "camping pants." They are 100% cotton, desert camo BDU pants that I pick up at the surplus store. I have a few pairs, because they're light, cut generously in the "crotchal area" for climbing, and -- they have lots of pockets.

Then it hit me. About 8 or ten months ago, I had been walking through the woods and found an ancient, bleached-white deer skull, and the teeth had been falling out. I remembered picking out a nice one and thinking that it would be the basis for a fine practical joke.

I know. I totally deserved it.