The False Teeth…

Algarve Life - Amanda Gleaves
3 min readJun 11, 2023

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Have you ever lost anything on the beach?

I lost a bracelet that my aunt gave me. It was irreplaceable, I was very upset about it.

My ex, João, lost something else…

It was a very hot day in July and we all set off to Faro Island. João, and the kids and I.

A word of warning, never go to Faro Island in August! It takes forever to cross the bridge.

Anyway this particular day we decided to go by the estuary instead of the open sea, as the kids were quite small and it was much calmer.

When I first met my ex, I thought he was ever so humble. He had great teeth, and when I used to tell him that, he would say,

“No…” all coy and modest.

It wasn’t until we had been dating a while that I saw him yank them out to clean them! I was horrified!

So, anway back to the story.

We had been for a swim and I was sitting on the shore with the kids. João was splashing about in the water acting like a clown, trying to make them laugh.
The kids were laughing, I was laughing, and even João was, until his teeth were projected of his mouth into the water below. His frantic effort to catch them as they plummeted into the depths, failed.

He dived in after them, but it was too late.

We waded about in the water for about an hour looking for them, but it was starting to get dark and we had to go home.

On the way home he stressed about it. False teeth are not cheap and replacing them would be expensive.

That evening he stressed about it too.

The next day he woke early, and looked like he was getting ready to set off somewhere.

I asked him where he was going and he replied.

“I am going to the beach to find my teeth!”

We all laughed. How in hell could he ever find them now?

Determined, he set off to the beach.

Now one thing you have to understand about João is that he has a lot of willpower. I wasn’t sure that willpower was going to be enough though. I mean the tide and come in and gone out again, there were far too many things against him.

After a few hours he came back with this fish!

No, he didn’t really. 🤣

But he did come back with his teeth!

We couldn’t believe it!

He had actually found them.

Just goes to show that there is a lot to be said about willpower!

May the force be with you!

:)

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Algarve Life - Amanda Gleaves
Algarve Life - Amanda Gleaves

Written by Algarve Life - Amanda Gleaves

I have been living in the Algarve in Portugal since 1989! I have been teaching Portuguese to foreigners for nearly 20 years! https://portugueseinsixweeks.com/