In Other News, Toothpaste Is Applied With A Brush

My new dental floss comes with an instruction manual. Okay, it’s just one page. Okay, it’s a little piece of paper that sits behind the floss in the container. It says, “Tips for use.” Maybe they hide it behind the floss in the package so it doesn’t scare you.  “Uh-oh. This could be difficult.”

But I thought I’d better read it. I usually take that approach. I read people’s t-shirts while we’re waiting in line. 

The one-page, “We’re too cheap to pay to print something impressive” manual—which is the way my mother pronounces the name of the guy they just hired—

“No, Mom, you don’t say, ‘Man-u-el.’ It’s ‘Mon-well,’” I explain.

 “Uh-huh."

Anyway, there’s a little picture of someone playing  “Cat’s Cradle,” then a closeup of somebody’s teeth, which someone else is giving a thumbs-up—

What? That’s how you floss? You thread the ribbon between your teeth? And all this time I’ve been winding it around the doorknob and hoping for the best. (On the plus side, we now have a cat. He took a look and said, “Hey, my kind of people!”)

The piece of paper is not done talking. The next thing it says is, “Why Should I Floss?” 

Now, here’s where I got stuck. No, not stuck on what those words mean in English. My reading skills are right up there with yours (or else you’re not reading this, so who needs you?). But the question stopped me.

Because last I checked, no one makes you buy dental floss. No one comes up to you while you’re reading about how embarrassed Gwyneth Paltrow was that when she went au naturel under that dress there was just a little too much nature showing and says, “You don’t _have_ to buy the floss, of course, but Freddie here thinks it would be a really good idea.”

No. It’s just there, in its various forms, including the ones without mint that people buy for some reason. If you’re going to have to floss, you might as well have some flavor, is my view. 

It says, “You want me? Fine. You don’t want me.  Fine.” If the floss were human, while you looked it over it would be doing its nails.

So wouldn’t you think that by the time you're—you should excuse the expression—forking over your seventeen dollars for the small package, you would have made the commitment? You would be among those who didn’t need to be told why flossing might be a good idea?

Unless it’s like those other products they assume one person is buying for another?

Life is so confusing these days.

©2013 Laynie Tzena.