8 ,/
us if there’s anything we can do to be of
further assistance,” Lynette purred into the
phone. “You have a great day, Larry!”
“You too, Lynette,” I said and hung up,
another satisfied customer.
What I didn’t say was how strange and
wonderful this phone call had been, and
how I’ll be a loyal Zappos customer from
here on out, and how I’ll now buy all of my
boots and shoes online—especially if I can
again speak with Leilani, Megan, Gladys or
Lynette; sweet, apologetic Lynette, who I
can still hear whispering my name.s
Paste Makes Waste
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by Chris Connolly
I DON’T want to come across as progress
averse. I love my cell phone; I love my digital
camera. But I have to say: Things have got-
ten a little out of hand with the toothpaste.
Currently lurking in my medicine closet
are two tubes of toothpaste, one Colgate
Luminous and one Crest Pro Health.
Combined, these powerful pastes claim to
perform the following functions: to fluori-
date, strengthen enamel, shine and whiten
teeth, prevent cavities, battle gingivitis,
remove plaque and tartar and freshen the ol’
breath. One of them is also specially formu-
lated for sensitive teeth.
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I had cause to contemplate the dizzying
advances in tooth care recently when my
wife scheduled me for my first dentist ap-
pointment in 12 years. Yes, 12 years.
I’d always had great teeth—only one cav-
ity in my life—so in my 20s I just stopped
going to the big D. But then my wife got a
fancy new job with fancy new “insurance,”
and she laid a mandatory checkup on me.
When I’d think about climbing into the
dentist chair, I was seriously fearful. I’m a
good brusher, but even so, I figured I was
in for at least a year of massive reconstruc-
tion and comeuppance. So I strayed from
my good friend Aquafresh and bought the
new pastes to try to reduce the ravages of
neglect.
But as I stood at the sink twice a day, try-
ing to brush away my sins, I found myself
increasingly concerned about the transition
toothpaste seems to be making from a main-
tenance product to a product that actually
powers up your choppers. I mean, I hate the
Cavity Creeps like any good American, but
I don’t feel the need to kill them and then
go after their friends and families, and salt
their fields.
I remember when I first converted to
Aquafresh. It was the stripe of red gel that
entranced me. I was about 5 years old
and had grown up in a devoutly Crest-ian
household. I don’t think I was even aware
that there were any other pastes. But then
I went to the Isenberg’s house and saw that
stripe of red gel, and my little mind was
blown. It was red! And clear! Obviously very
powerful. I went home, petitioned for and
was granted a paste change, and I was never
happier.
Aquafresh was a toothpaste you could
put your faith in, because its makers under-
stood the concept of restraint. Could they
have sold just the red gel? Of course they
could have. And they would have swiftly
established a crushing monopoly on the
toothpaste trade. But they understood that
mankind wasn’t ready for an all-red-gel
Aquafresh. It would have been too
powerful.
Aim toothpaste tested the waters with
an all-gel formula, albeit blue, in the 1980s
and paid a severe price. Today, Aim is sold
in 99-cent stores with the slogan, “Quality
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toothpaste at a valuable price!”
Valuable price? That sounds like the
words of a computerized translation pro-
gram. It’s pure insanity. Clearly the people at
Aim flew too close to the sun and have been
driven mad! I imagine they’re all wandering
around the factory now with giant teeth,
writing nonsense “warnings” on the walls in
their own shit.
I guess it’s good that my toothpaste
strengthens my enamel. But it also worries
me. How does the paste know when to stop?
It may be a small difference, but every time
you paint a room, the room becomes a wee
bit smaller. If I keep using these super-
pastes, am I going to be walking around in
the year 2015 looking like I’m wearing a
mouth guard all the time?
Certain oral hygiene development claims
are easily identified bunk: Those dye-filled
bristles that tell me when to buy a new
brush? No, thanks. I’ve never found myself
at the sink gouging my gums with some
threadbare brush that looked like a prison
shank. But Sonicare? Am I correct in think-
ing that I’m brushing my teeth with sound?
I don’t even understand that enough to be
accurately scared of it. And is there any way
I could brush them with AC/DC? Because
that would be awesome!
No, I don’t need to understand everything
about the upkeep of my body. I don’t need to
know why Aleve takes away the pain, only
that it does. It’s just that tooth care used to
be so analog—scrub the bad shit off your
teeth—and now it’s a world of rapidly esca-
lating R and D claims that are getting harder
and harder to sort out. So, what happened at
the dentist? Well, I walked in feeling nause-
ated. I took a look around the waiting room
and said to myself, “Get used to this, kid,
because you’re going to be spending a lot of
time here.”
Then the dentist x-rayed me and poked
around for a while, and guess what? Not a
scratch on me! Not so much as a cavity or a
receding gumline.
I felt like I’d won the Super Bowl! I
sent my wife a jubilant text message: “I’m
unbreakable!” it said.
But even as I walked to the car, inside I
was thinking, “At what cost?”
At what cost?s