Monday, March 17, 2008

Top 10 Ways to Be Creative In An Oral Emergency

Another Monday. Another post.

Today I decided to scoff my elimination diet* (scoff scoff) and get a chicken "tornado" wrap from the local "sounds like Tobeys" super-monopoly, er...I mean supermarket store.

I wolfed it down (a cross between inhale and make sweet salvia love to it) and went to grab my handy-dandy purple travel toothbrush for a little oral hygiene pick-me-up before my next client. [Note to self: do not use the word "client" after a sentence containing the phrase "oral hygiene pick-me-up" unless wanting to sound like a wayward wanton tart].

I realized my handy dandy purple travel toothbrush is in my black purse. And not in the snake-skin brown purse I'm sporting today (which nicely matches the snake-skin boots I'm wearing). First thought: Don't panic. Maybe this is the first time in a year you won't have something mangled in the front of your braces like the grill of a 1970 Chevy driving through Alabama in August. Upon closer inspection in the loo, it was now time to panic. Suck me silly and call me crazy but chunks of brown, green and white in your teeth just don't scream "professional" to me.

But in true Redhead-Next-Door-idness why panic when you can get creative...

Top 10 Ways To Be Creative In An Oral Emergency:

1. Fashion piece of paper towel into pointy toothpick thingy except it's paper towel and try to dismangle food chunks. Doesn't have the stiff-as-wood properties like a toothpick. Quite useless really on chicken. Absorbancy qualities might be best left to soup stuck in the teeth.
2. Use piece of fruit, like a grape, for make-shift spongy toothbrush. Run the risk of adding more food to the fire.
3. Attempt to quickly use dinner fork as a toothpick. Run the risk of getting fork stuck in braces. Or getting caught using fork as a toothpick by staffer. Try to keep your cool and state (very matter of factly) "I saw this on Oprah." When all else fails, return to Oprah. She can do not wrong in the eyes of most women. And Dr. Phil.
4. Fashion paperclip into bacteria filled toothpick. Use and hope to goodness sake you don't contract typhoid fever.

Ok, I know I said Top 10...but really what are you expecting after #4? It works. And let us never speak of this again. [hauuuuuck] Does my throat seem red and bumpy to you?

*Elimination diet: when you eliminate certain foods out of your diet to figure out which foods your body is sensitive to. Or in my case, eliminate all foods that taste good. Just when you thought it couldn't suck any more, you eliminate coffee. And then you know what sucks really means.

4 comments:

Jami said...

I understand that primitive people use a green twig with a shredded end as a toothbrush. Instead of Oprah, you could say you saw it on National Geographic. Oh, wait, is there anything green in your part of the world yet?

Erika said...

Jami: National Geographic - love it! As long as I remember to keep my boobs under wraps. Nothing green here yet. Unless you count my green eyes when Paul tells his stories from his ex-files.

Kirsten Sampson said...

First question: Why didn't you go back to sobey's to buy a toothbrush? Realistically, it took you just as much time to go through 1-4 on your list then to hop in the car and get to Sobey's and return.

# 5 to add to the list. Bring a large glass of water to the bathroom and start swishing like mouth wash. It may of helped loosing food items.

Erika said...

Kiki: I did try the water thing (which would normally work in a "normal" situation aka not-with-braces).