Shopping for a new toothbrush this past Christmas holiday season was not with the normal joy associated with the time of year. It was a needed purchase. My toothbrush was ragged. The worn bent bristles would have never met the approval of my Dental Hygienist’s critical inspection; should she have been given the opportunity.
Our neighborhood Safeway Super Market offered hundreds of choices for a new brush. Every size, color and firmness where on display, arranged on an eye level shelf that must have been twenty feet in length!
Wow there is was! A little beauty with a larger than normal grip, perfect for my XL size hands; I made my selection from the many. That night I brushed with the toothpaste foam barely covering my happy grin! I loved the ample handle and I gave the “old choppers” an extra stroke or two!
A week of brushing went by went suddenly my new brush went “click” and started vibrating! The damn thing was a self contained electric toothbrush. I never read the label when I bought it; I can’t see a thing without my classes on. There is was, a little switch recessed in the handle that turned it off and on. It runs off of a AAA battery. That is why the handle was so large—for the battery and little motor.
Several months passed and the vibrating little marvel was wearing out. Back to Safeway I marched with great confidence, right up to the toothbrush display. Still sans reading glasses I found the same brush and took it home, knowing in fact it was a vibrating, battery powered electric toothbrush!
What a shock I had that evening. After wetting the bristles, applying the paste, I pushed the little recessed switch to fire up the brush and heard a racket like a conveyor belt in a canning factory! This little honey didn’t vibrate, it spun! There it was, right in the middle of the brush head, spinning like crazy, as little circular clump of bristles. This felt fine, but the noise, it was awful. The old brush had hum, it was like a bed time lullaby. This, with its little internal motor and drive shaft, could wake the dead!
None the less I learned to love the new devise. My teeth always sparkled as if I just left my Dentist’s office after a semi-annual cleaning.
My wife and I along with the spinning little marvel went from Denver to Las Vegas on a recent weekend. After a long day of people watching and losing money it was time to call it a night. Looking forward to a familiar “spin brush job,” I gave my teeth an extra good cleaning. Ready to rinse my mouth out I pushed the little switch to turn the brush off. AAAGGGHHH! What is going on, I thought. The switch felt weird in a puffy sort of way. The brush would shut off! Something happened with the altitude change from Denver and switch was “toast!” I tried everything I could think of but the switch would not work. I put the brush in an empty class, and figured the battery would wear down in a few hours. The glass made it only sound louder! I tried to take it apart. Nothing comes apart! It is sealed up forever!
I wrapped the spinning little monster in a hand towel and went to bed. I could not sleep. “What if the towel catches on fire” were my thoughts. “Fire?” No way, I will try to drown it! Filling the sink with water I immersed the little bastard under several inches of water. Louder than ever now, with the water amplifying the little drive shaft sound, I had to conjure up another plan.
I hung have the toothbrush off of the bathroom counter and to tried to break it in two. It would not break! It was indestructible. This is in thanks to space age plastics! I now have a self contained, spinning, bullet proof devise that is going to keep me up all night.
My wife Susan suggests a plan to throw it in the hotel trash! Now that is genius I think. I put the obstinate, grinding, spinning, life of its own little “son of bitch” in a plastic bag and walk around the hotel has looking for a trash can. The only one I could find was a combo ash tray, trash can. I slipped it in when no one was looking! By now it is on its way the landfill still grinding away. I keep checking the news for a Las Vegas landfill fire, with the arson investigator finding my finger prints on the rather large handle!
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