Brusha brusha brusha

While at the supermarket the other day, I thought to myself, “Oh, while I’m here, I should pick up a new toothbrush.”

Holy hell, I am not trained for this kind of shopping.

What is up with all the toothbrushes? It used to be bristles on a stick. Well, okay, technically it used to be a stick. But as far as manufactured goods go, I was pretty well satisfied with the craaaaazy inventiveness of the original Reach® angled-head toothbrush. I mean, whoa. That was some thinking, there.

Since that time, toothbrushes have become quite the industrial-design darlings. I don’t care about the brand, but that was the least of all the decisions I was faced with. Manual? Battery-operated? Disposable? Replaceable head? Angled head? Angled bristles? Cross-action bristles? Indicator bristles? Antibacterial bristles? Gum stimulator? Tongue cleaner? CHEEK cleaner? Dual-action? Triple-action? And would you like that in soft or medium? What color? With extra country-style pulp, plus added calcium? Want fries with that?

Ho. Lee. CRAP. I was buying replacement heads for my Ultrasonex for quite some time, but I switched back to manual a good two or so years ago. And I assure you, I have gone through a number of toothbrushes in that time. Where did all of these choices come from? How have I not noticed? Have I been buying my toothbrushes from the local We Only Carry Three? Or has it only recently reached this level of overload?

I finally picked a brush with three different levels of two different angles of four different colors of bristles, with a row of gum-stimulating “fingers” along either side. The super-grip handle (have there been a lot of slipped-toothbrush accidents that spurred on this influx of ergo-grip toothbrushes?) is, I think, deep pink. I didn’t look that closely, and my eyes were glazing over.

I know this much: the damn thing doesn’t fit in my toothbrush holder.