It's absolutely true: You learn something new every day.

Interesting fact of the day: Daily Life in a Victorian House by Laura Wilson, page 33, reads: "In the [18th] century, false teeth were made from real teeth".

Are you disgusted by that? Because I am. I mean, you start thinking, okay, where did they get the teeth? And there are a few different options, but the conclusion one is invariably led to is, They got them from dead people.

Ew.

I mean, think about it! This is worse than hair wreathes--when people who came to funeral were given gifts that were woven from the dead party's hair. This is, like, sucking on a bit of dead person! How utterly disgusting! My dad pointed out that someone we know has a sheep's bone implanted in her back, and I said, yes, but that's from a sheep, not a dead person, and what's furthermore, she can't taste it. At which point my dad said, "Well, at least they weren't eating them like popcorn!", which made my mom laugh so hard I thought she was going to have to sit down.

Which brings me to the way I conclude every one of these strange musings: Life is weird. But my dad is weirder, and apparently the people of the 18th century were worse.

I'm going to go eat tootsie rolls and think about how happy I am they don't taste like dead people's teeth.