Comb

In the 'good old days,' combs were often made from bone. They were fragile enough that the teeth of the combs broke easily, so that soon they were mostly gone, and you'd have to get a new one. But for my parents, replacing a comb was impossibly expensive during the war years, so that eventually mom had no comb left, and she did without for quite sometime. Hard to imagine, really, eve for an old guy with little hair, what it must have been like for a young woman to have no comb.

One day, dad came home with a new comb. "How did you manage that," mom asked. "Wife," said my dad, "don't ask too many questions."