In Melbourne we have a thing called the Spring Racing Carnival in October and November. It is a time when people who love horse racing get dressed up and celebrate with the like-minded. It is also a time that people who don’t know much about horses but love to get dressed up and do a bit of celebrating let loose.
Every year there are tales of disaster in the social pages, and the track carparks are full of people who are suddenly regretting the decisions they have made under the influence of copious amounts of alcohol.
Northern Star 22 Aug 1888 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article71725276
I thought this article was very funny, even though it is from 1888 it could well refer to the jealous rivalries that swirl through the crowd at the racing next year too.
This is a funny tale of the competition for attention between Miss A___ and Miss R___ at the Rockhampton races.
Although Miss A___ was the recipient of the majority of the attention she made the mistake of opening her mouth a little too widely when she was cheering the winner past the post and out popped her shiny false teeth.
Miss R___ was quick to see her opportunity to humiliate her rival and pounced. Holding the teeth aloft she politely but loudly returned them to their owner.
Poor Miss A___ immediately fainted and was carried home on a stretcher, her days at the top of the socialite set at an end. Oh, the humiliation!
Buried words and Bushwa. 
That would have been so funny!
I can imagine the theatrical fainting of poor Miss A____ as she realized her days as Miss Popularity were over for a time. I expect the fainting was faked but I bet any tears were real!
Proving that all that glisters is not Gold ?
Most people would balk at picking up someone elses falsies, but if you could see yourself vanquishing your enemy with that one icky act I bet most people would be grabbing them up too! If they had been gold she probably would have never got a finger on them in the crush 😉
lmao – if this is a precautionary tale about next year’s cup then I’m spending all my money on hanging on to my own teeth!!!
See, a real lady would have been far more restrained in her celebrations. A wide-mouthed holler? How undignified! 😉 Hmmmm, ferals impersonating ladies? Now that does sound like the next SRC! 😀
Oh! A conspiracy… foiled by sloppy dentistry!
Nothing worse for a fashionable impression than bad false teeth!
I wonder if she was unkindly referred to as ‘gummy’ from then on?
Thanks to you, I think I’m going to start flossing twice a day instead of once a day. WOW. Great story, Metan!
It certainly makes me glad my teeth are firmly affixed to my mouth. If she was a society Miss I thought she must have been quite young to have lost all her teeth. Perhaps this is the karmic revenge of all those uncared for teeth!
It certainly gives another meaning to “spoilt rotten,” doesn’t it?
Or, really, it could have been anything. A bad illness or an injury?
Either way, I am so, so glad to live in the time of modern dentistry.
Really, really glad.
Me too, although not right at the moment I am in the chair awaiting the needle, mind you!
I suddenly feel the overwhelming need to call my dentist to set up a cleaning. Seriously. : )