Dental Care

I’ve tried them all; Crest, Colgate, Aim, Pearl Drops and even some organic crap from Trader Joes. I’ve tried whitening, cavity care, extra minty, and cool ranch. But they all do the same thing.

When my girls were infants and I was still in school I worked a job that had very late hours on occasion. One evening I came in very late. Not wanting to wake my wife or my babies I quietly went upstairs avoiding the squeaky steps. I carefully closed the bathroom door and without turning on the light I did my pre-sleep tinkle and brushed my teeth. I grabbed the tube of toothpaste and started to brush vigorously. It didn’t take long for me to realize I was brushing with Desitin Diaper Rash Cream. I never liked the smell of that stuff and I discovered I didn’t like the taste either. The problem with Desitin is that it is specifically made to stick to wet skin and never come off. Since the inside of my mouth is made entirely of wet skin, the Desitin found a nice home. And it wasn’t leaving. There was no spitting it out. So I grabbed toilet paper and tried wiping it out. But toilet paper is meant to break apart, which it did inside my mouth. So I went downstairs and used paper towels. I went thru several sheets before I could go back to brushing with the real stuff.

I was reminded of this incident because of something that recently happened. We just put in a whole-house fan. In our climate it is has saved us using our air conditioning about 80% which translates into big savings. We had to cut four new vents into the side of the house for the exhaust for the giant fan. As we trimmed up the vents we sealed them using some silicone caulking. I got some silicone on my new shorts. So I went to Home Depot and purchased some Mötsenböcker’s Lift Off® Silicone and Latex Caulk Remover. Using an old toothbrush, I scrubbed that stuff out of my new shorts and made them good-as-new.

The next morning, forgetting I had just placed a large amount of Mötsenböcker’s on my old toothbrush, and not realizing I had a new toothbrush, I placed a dab of Colgate on my brush and scrubbed away. I was quickly taken aback and surprised by the prodigious foaming action instantly filling my mouth. Then I realized my mouth was hosting a severe chemical reaction akin to mixing bleach with sulfuric acid. I immediately removed the contents of my mouth by heaving into the sink and spent the next five minutes rinsing my mouth out with cool water. Since I could not read the tiny lettering on the bottle to determine what poison almost killed me, I decided not to worry about it.

Always look before you brush. Always.