Friday, August 8, 2008

Open Wide!


Are you sick and tired of "Tiny Tech"?
Smaller cars, miniature phones, key-sized credit cards, and the little condensed jugs of laundry soap?


Do you feel like you've landed in Oz with everything shrinking around you?

Well, my friend -there is a way to leave the world of munchkin-sized products for a brief time.

Just go out and shop for a toothbrush...


**********


My experience all started about a year ago when my son began dental college.

We stopped laughing with large, open mouths.

Instead, we have begun to suppress a tiny groan with our lips rolled tightly together.
We became self-conscious.

We keep dental floss tucked inside our cell phone cases and buy mouth wash by the gallon.
We whiten, brighten , de-tarter and strengthen what is left of our choppers!

“Do you floss, Mom?” my son asked, peering strangely at me one evening while we stood outside a local restaurant.
Without warning, my husband and I were unexpectedly being examined for cavities and gum disease by the street light.
Our son snooped into the caverns of our mouths like we were a couple of puppies.
And all we could do was protest in pirate language with a throaty “Aaarghh...” while a curious crowd gathered.


I knew then that it was time for updating our oral hygiene.
Our little plastic toothbrushes were twisted and worn, our toothpaste tube squeezed carelessly into ball of oozing blue goop.
How could we possibly let our son see such disgraceful neglect?

I immediately set out to do some shopping...

Once upon a time it was a simple choice when selecting a new toothbrush.
Pink or blue? Red or yellow? Soft, hard, or medium bristles?
Back then, two minutes and two dollars set you up for another year or so.

Now days the toothbrush aisle gives you as much selection as the cereal aisle.
All shapes, sizes, colors, and mechanical wonders.
They spin and twirl and shoot and pulse.
They vibrate, oscillate and rotate.
I stood aghast, overwhelmed with my choices, not knowing where to begin...

You would think that toothbrushes would follow in line and become smaller like everything else in today's world.
With evolution in mind, I can see where our Cromagnum ancestors might have needed a giant toothbrush for their monkey-mouths-
but surely we can invent some tiny pod of a device that we just insert in our mouths like a bug that will clean our teeth, rid us of plaque and leave us sparkling fresh.
All without feeling as though our mouth has just been raped!

But.....

... Returning home that evening after my shopping, my husband and I crowded in front of the bathroom sink to inspect our new toothbrushes. He got purple, I got pink.
“Wow !” he exclaimed,eyes wide, pulling the brush from the wrapper.

“Only takes fifteen double A batteries,” I beamed proudly, “and the drug store financed it all at zero percent for twelve months!
For a few bucks more I got the optional i-pod insert so we can listen to music while we brush and added the cool lighting effects.
The party has just begun!”

With a click of the button, the curls of toothpaste we had applied went flying over the shower door and the jolt of vibrating power sent us against the wall. Our lips flapped like a neighing stallion and our teeth rattled like dentures in a blender.

But once we wrestled and tamed them, using our new toothbrushes felt like a cyclone had just cleaned our teeth.
We smiled in the mirror all night, we smiled in our sleep, we smiled so much that the dog got scared and hid under the porch.

The only downfall about our new toothbrushes is they wouldn't fit into our old toothbrush holder.
The tiny holes wouldn't accommodate the baseball-bat-sized handles on our new Turbo Teeth 5000 model.

But we fixed that problem.
My husband has designed and built the world's first toothbrush closet!.


Won't our son be proud ...