Everything Was Going So Well

You guys, this is awful!  My last post on this very narrowminded blog was over a month ago, and this means that the last time I took care of my teeth/gums was about over a month ago as well.  Well, I’ve been brushing twice a day, but even Hitler did that.  I am no better than Hitler, when it comes to oral hygene.

Well, shit.  I have to get back on track, but at the same time, even as I write “I have to get back on track” my brain is shrugging it off.  It’s as if my whole body (like 97% of me) doesn’t want to brush and rinse and floss and pic, except for my mouth (like 3% of me).  It’s like the teacher trying to convince kids that being able to multiply big numbers on paper is important.  Well I havent multiplied big numbers on paper in years, and you know what I don’t even really remember how to do it.  (Division I know, but thats because division signs are cool.  Multiplication signs are so fucking unoriginal)

So I don’t know what else to say really.  It’s like 1 am.  Maybe I’ll do some water piking in a few minutes, maybe not.  Probably not.  Almost definitely not.  I hope those scary mouth surgeons take my insurance…

Next up on my new supplies list is one of my personal favorites, the Oral Stimulator.  Now, I know what you’re thinking:  what exactly is this new kind of Mouth Dildo and how can I get one?  But wait, the Oral Stimulator will not Stimulate your Oral Cavity quite like you might want to be Orally Stimulated.  No, the only pleasure you’ll get from this Oral Stimulator is the satisfaction and pride that comes with having strong, healthy gums.  And hey, maybe the satisfaction and pride that comes with having strong, healthy gums is the kind of pleasure you are looking for, you sick freak.

Ok, so this is a really simple instrument that looks like it either a) dates back to the 19th century or b) looks like an instrument for hideously modern torture.  It’s just a bronzey stick, with a twisty head designed for mouth-entering, and a firm rubber tip that looks like it would be dangerously pointy, but is actually quite soft and nipply.

So heres what you do, so they tell me.  You simply take the pointy part and align it with the pointy part of your gums - like the tip of the triangle that comes between your two teeth.  And then you just press the rubber part up against your gum, applying just enough pressure.  Apparently, if you do this to all your teeth, every day, for thousands of years, then your gums will grow stronger.

You know - for someone who has really weak gums I have to say this is just another way of beating this shit out of them.  Imagine gums were people, right?  Your gums would be just a normal guy or gal.  (Assuming your gums are healthy, assuming you floss, assuming your a robot with no social life, capable of withstanding floss related boredom no mere human can survive.)  My gums on the other hand, is a little bit like Milhouse from the Simpsons.  Asthmatic, with bad eyesight, pretty much a loser, a wimp, a whiner.

So, we want to turn my Loser Gum Man into a Super Smooth Ladies Gum Man, but how are we going to do it?  Step One:  Douse my gums in poision mouthwash.  Step Two:  Beat the shit out of them every day with a big rubber spike.  Step Three:  Using Water Pik, spray vigorously with a fire hose jet.  Whats next?  Am I going to start stacking my gums in naked piles and take pictures with them?  Maybe put scorpions in my own mouth, just to scare my gums into growing up?  Do my gums have to pass some ancient Native American Puberty Test, by skinning 30 foxes in a cave for a week?  Are my gums going to be ritualistically piereced and circumsized, as written in the tribal law?

ORAL STIMULATOR:

• Price: Free, it’s as cheap as it gets.

• Rhymes With: Floral Simulator.

• Schedule: Once daily, thank Christ.

• Effectiveness: Probably pretty low.  Considering: its free, nobody has ever heard of it before, and the look my Holocaust Denying Dental Hygenist gave me when I asked her if it could save me from having to floss.

• Chances That I’ll Probably Use It: I feel like in a pinch, when I want to do something for my teeth I should probably spend that fleeting energy on Piking, Washing, or Rinsing, rather that Stimulating.  But when I’m feeling guilty and going for the complete package, it’s the least I can do, except for nothing, which is what I’ve been doing all along.

• Upside: I can take it out of the bathroom and Stimulate Myself while watching TV.

• Downside: Logic tells me this will actually do very little. To use another analogy, if cleaning my gums was equivalent to trying to make my car go faster, the Oral Stimulator would be about as effective as taking down the radio attena for less wind resistance.

• Overall: I already stimulate myself a few times a week, why not orally stimulate myself too?

It’s been a week or two now, and I have been up to the backwater woods of Maine and back.  That’s right, I spent five fabulous days in possibly the most remote location in the continental United States:  Marion Township, on the downeast coast of Maine.  You can just imagine what the dental care is like in a place that techinically doesn’t have a zip code.

So yeah I brought some over the counter mouthwash for pussies along with me, and my toothbrush, but not much else.  My teeth and my dental habits have quickly degenerated back in to pre-SHOCKING DENTAL VISIT OF TERROR days.  But you know, I took a few days off of work.  I got up to the wildnerness, saw some old friends who I practically consider family, had a great time - I now have to convince myself, that I need to earn all that super fun stuff back, Private Ryan style.  I had a great time in Maine, but now I’m back in New York, and that means swimming in the lake is to be replaced by …my Water Pik.  God, that’s depressing.

All the pieces are in allignment now:  I’m back from Maine, I have my perscription mouthwash, my Water Pik, two new toothbrushes, floss, new toothpaste, so now I can go ahead and - - - watch three episodes of Battlestar Galactica I Netflixed.  Dammit!

Ok.  Mouthwash, check; Water Pik, check; Teethbrushes, check; Toothpaste, check; Let’s order Thai food, score!  AHHHHHH!

Why is it so hard for me to force myself to do anything I have to do but really don’t want to?  Nuns, schoolteachers, and the entire postal service get up every day and go do hundreds of thousands of things they have to do but don’t really want to do.  Am I no better than your common nun?  Blasphemy!  If those old broads can go a lifetime with out a handful of dick, then I can spend ten minutes a day in the bathroom saving my mouth.

I’m inspired now, by this nun thing I just came up with - I mean, nuns?  I’m fucking way better than nuns!  I’ll show those knuckle-smacking, vow-taking, cock-avoiding penguins who their God is:  I’m going to go brush, pik, and rinse right now - - - oh wait, The Soup is on, see y’all tomorrow.

The second prong on the fork of my attack on plaque is my perscription mouthwash.  Official Name: Peridex / Sciencey Name:  Clorhexidine Gluconate / Street Name: Baby Piss.  This ain’t your momma’s mouthwash, this is the heavy duty stuff, the kind that you can’t get without a note from your doctor.  So twice a day I’m supposed to rinse and spit this stuff, which is a clearish light blue and very frothy liquid.  Imagine the head of a shook up beer, but the beer is made of paint thinner, and you had to swish it in your mouth for 30 seconds twice a day, and also theres a thimble full of gasoline in there for good measure.

What’s strange is that the perscription reccommends not drinking water for 30 minutes afterwards, and not mouthwashing before eating because it distorts the sense of taste.  The aftertaste is so bitter that when you drink water after rinsing, the bittery taste is compounded and its like gargling battery acid after licking the bottom of a hospital dumpster filled with sleeping hobos who just shat themselves after a Taco Bell “Fourth Meal.”  Does “Fourth Meal” still count if you are homeless and eat one meal or less a day?

Other than the nasty taste, Baby Piss is not really that bad.  The worst thing is that its inconvenient for me sometimes to use it when I know I wont be drinking water or eating for a while, because during the day I only stop drinking water to eat.  In the morning I need water to get me going, especially on days like today when I wake up so hungover my insides feel like hardened papier mache diorama.  On those dried out mornings, if I got a paper cut, I would actually bleed paper.  Perhaps I could get an IV installed for those days when I need that extra bottle of icy cold Poland Springs to be hooked right into my crinkly veins.

Man, this post has got a lot of metaphors and similies and the such.

The one other downside is that Peridex can cause slight staining of the teeth, apparently because the colored film latches on to all that usually invisible carpet of nastiness that just sits on your molars all day long.  If anyone gives me any grief about my stained, dirty looking teeth, I’ll just don a temporary British accent and they will be thoroughly charmed by my adorable whimsy.

PERIDEX

• Price: Relavity Cheap - about 10 dollars for 3 months worth.

• Rhymes With: Smear-A-Mex, a Republican Anti-Immigration Tactic

• Schedule: Supposedly twice daily, not before eating drinking breathing urinating defacating masturbating or hibernating.

• Effectiveness: Unknown so far, but if I’ve learned one thing from NyQuil, and I like to think I’ve learned a shitload about life from NyQuil, or at least I’ve learned a shitload about life while on NyQuil, it’s that elixers that taste the worst usually work the best.  If that NyQuil Hypothesis, or NyPothesis, is correct, Peridex should work exceptionally well.

• Chances That I’ll Actually Use It Regularly: About 75%.  I’m prone to making up excuses for myself as to why not to take things.  I’ll have to tell myself that 30 minutes without a sip of wonderful lifegiving water is a small price to pay for “healthier” “gums”.

• Upside: It’s not floss.

• Downside: The lingering aftertaste makes my commute to work on the subway in the morning a true assault on all five senses.

• Overall: Hopefully rinsing my mouth with what is basically poision should toughen up my gums.  Hm, I wonder if I can swallow it, let me check the bottle.  Oh, it casually says:  DO NOT SWALLOW DO NOT SWALLOW DO NOT SWALLOW.  Perhaps I’ll peel that sticker off and bring it to Church to pin to a young altar boy’s lapel, just to remind those old priesty bastards that we’re on to them.

So here I am at work on a Sunday, obviously hungover, as evidenced from last night’s post.  On my lunch break, looking for something interesting to read on Wikipedia, I stumble on an “interesting” fact about America’s Most Wanted Mouth Terrorist Gingivitis:

Birth control pills, and ingestion of heavy metals such as lead and bismuth may also cause gingivitis.

At first I thought I was in the clear.  When was the last time I ingested any heavy metals?  When Erin Gaffey dared me to eat that Guns N Roses cassette tape?  And you don’t even want to know how rarely I use birth control.  But wait…bismuth?  That looks familiar, as if I’ve seen it before, but in pink writing.  A quick few clicks later I discover:

Bismuth subsalicylate [is] the active ingredient in Pepto-Bismol

NOOOOOOO!  I take Pepto-Bismol all the time!  For years, I’ve sought refuge in Pepto from sour stomachs after delicious but also kind of gross meals.  Now that they have the chewable kind, it’s super easy and discreet to Pop Some Pink (thats what we call it on the street, yo) after polishing off a big sloppy chicken cutlet grinder or two street-fair Mozzareppas.  Jesus Christ, I love Mozzareppas.

This whole time I was getting sweet relief from my indigestion, I was also fueling the gingivitis fire.  This is like finding out we secretly trained and supplied Osama bin Laden, or that Bruce Willis was a ghost through that whole movie.  But what am I supposed to do?  Without Pepto Bismol all I can eat at a Chinese Restaurant is white rice.  This is New York, capital of tasty but terrible food, I needs my Pepto.  But now Gingivitis has turned it against me.  You win this round Gingivitis - but I am so firing up that WaterPik tonight mothafucka.

Ok you guys, what about nights like these, when I stumble home drunkenly with a bottle of water fresh from Gristedes and collapse in my bed.  WHAT THEN?  Time to get up and floss, right?  No, wrong, time to sleep, forever, in my bed, and never floss, and never brush, and never rinse, and never spit, and never salute the flag, and never sing a hymn and never remember and never do anything that anyone tells me to do, forever.

The first weapon I bought for my War on Tartar was the cheapest and will probably turn out to be the most useless:  Reg’lar Old Dental Floss.  Actually, to be more specific, its Crest© Glide© Whitening Plus Scope© Flavor Mint Splash© Floss.  38 yards worth, to be specific.  (Wait seriously?  This little thing holds fucking 38 yards of floss?  I feel as though I should test that in a real world situation…)

So yeah, the chances of me using this are actually pretty slim.  Why?  Because Flossing Sucks.  My dentist (or my right-wing Palin Supporter Dental Hygenist) did not seem to understand that flossing is only slightly less tedious than reading a book about the topography of Kansas, or for that matter, reading the Bible.  Seriously.  If flossing was a movie, it would be 2001: A Space Odyssey.

You know it strikes me now that I’m not even really sure HOW to floss.  I mean I know you stick it in between your teeth to get at the gunked up left over Thai Food, but there’s got to be a method to that OCDesque madness.  And you know what?  I don’t want to know how to floss.  Eff my GOP Dental Hygenist (CT-R) - I am not flossing unless I absolutely have to.

Why?  Because it’s a mind numbing, soul sucking chore with no reward.  “But Jack,” I hear you saying, “the reward for flossing is not having a mouth as totally boned as yours.”  To which I say, America is the land of Instant Gratification!  If I’m going to floss than I demand to see or feel some sort of reaction, immediately!  At least when I brush your teeth my mouth feels refreshed.  When I floss (never), I feel like a sad hamster on a wheel.  There is no sense of accomplishment, just .25 yards down, 37.75 yards left to go.  Do you think its possible to make a noose out of floss? … Ok, the answer is no.  I need to go buy some more floss.

FLOSS:

• Price: Cheap - $3.80 

• Rhymes With: Moss, Boss, Hoss.

• Schedule: Supposedly twice daily, but is not reccomended if you suffer from depression.

• Effectiveness: Very High, according to my Dental Hygenist (who probably read about it on the Drudge Report)

• Chances That I’ll Actually Use It Regularly: Unbelievably, Atrociously Small. If chances could be microscopic, the chances of me flossing regularly are dwarfed by an electron.

• Upside: [Blank]

• Downside: Floss exists and is expected to be used regularly.

• Overall: I feel as if I am now challenged to get better gums without using any floss at all. GAME ON.

So when I told my dad today about my gums being reduced to mere silly putty, he told me that his dentist also warned him about his gums.  My dad needed to finally get his wisdom teeth out and the dentist said if he didn’t get them out, his gums would recede so signficantly that they would apply gum matter culled from cadavers.  CADAVERS.  That’s right: if I don’t take care of my teeth my dentist will install the MouthStuff Of The Dead into my face.  I am going down to the Walbaum’s to get that WaterPik right the eff now, because I don’t like dead things in my most precious of headholes.  Unless of course I am eating those dead things, like hamburgers and ribs and chicken.  So I don’t want the recycled gumlines of the dead anywhere near my mouth unless they are tasty.

Today was just another typical day at the dentist.  I wondered on the way there, what kind of bow tie he would be wearing this time.  Spoiler alert, it had dogs on it.

So whatever, I’ve got my iPod in, crankin some tunes, when I notice that the dental hygenist’s latex gloves are perhaps a tad bloodier than they should be.  Thats when I notice my mouth is also filled my blood, because my gums are bloody.  Her hands looked like she was working as a nurse in the Civil War, they were so covered in blood.  When she had the sprayer and the sucker things in my mouth, I was hoping that she would clean them before the next patient, because I’m pretty sure I got blood all over them.  My little lobster-bib-style-dentist-napkin was pink with my blood.  I mean if I had been at a blood drive I would have earned my cookie.  I was like Bruce Willis in 12 Monkeys.  The point here is my gums were bleeding.

So the dental hygenist gives me the rap about brushing and flossing, but I’m way too cool for school.  I play along, with “mhms”, raised eyebrows, enthusiastic nodding.  But come on.  This lady is kind of a dentist but not quite a dentist.  She doesn’t even have a bowtie.  So clearly, I know more about teeth than her, my teeth are actually fine.   I fully expect my bowtie wearing REAL dentist is going to come in and reassure me of this, and he will also tell me that the silly dental hygenist is just spouting off nonsense again and she believes that flossing will help me and President Obama was born in Kenya.

Unfortunately, my dentist did not give me a puppy and tell me Santa was real.  He had even worse news.  Basically he said I have to go back in 3 months and if my gums aren’t better than he’s going to send me to a gum specialist, and also my teeth will fall out of my head.  Now, I’m no dental expert, but I’m pretty sure a gum specialist would cost about two garbage bags full of money that I don’t have saved up just for a rainy day / bleedy mouth situation.  And who the fuck ever heard of a gum specialist anyway.

So here I stand.  A few months from now I’ll have to return back to my dentist and get another check up and cleaning, and if I’m not better by then, my whole mouth is doomed.  DOOMED FOREVER!   However, I am still lacking motivation.

Next Time:  My Weapons of Plaque Destruction; also why anyone but me should give a shit about my teeth.