A Tale of Dentifrice

Though I have no statistical data to back up my assertion, (it's never stopped me before), I'm going to go out on a probably not very precarious limb and say that many people in this country like mint.

I say that because, if you go toothpaste shopping, you will find approximately forty-seven variations on the mint theme. There's

Spearmint,

Cool Mint,

Fresh Mint,

Vanilla Mint,

Extreme Herbal Mint,

Spry Cool Mint

Clean Mint,

Classic Mint,

Original Strong Mint,

Classic Strong Mint,

Creme De Mint,

Brisk Mint,

Organic Mint,

Cinnamon Mint,

Aquatic Mint,

Tea Tree Oil Mint,

Minwax Floor & Furniture Varnish Mint,

Castrol GTX Low Viscocity Mint,

KY Feminine Lubricant Eucalyptus Mint.

You get the idea. People like them their minty freshness.

Well, as we've established countless times by now, I am not like other people. I can't stand mint. I don't want mint julips or tulips, I don't like it on lamb or ham-- I do not like it here or there....

For years as a child I struggled with the requirements of brushing teeth. Most children, I think, struggle with this. This is why God invented sparkly toothpaste and Stone Cold Steve Austin toothbrushes. Because I knew I could not fight my parents (my mother would do spot "breath tests," like a police officer at a DUI checkpoint) I resigned myself to a life of twice daily toothbrushing.

For approximately four seconds a session.

Apparently, this is enough to do the trick. My wife will roll her eyes and punch a hole in the wall when she reads this, but I haven't had a single cavity my whole life-- in spite of a mother with at least a dozen fillings and a father who can, and does, play Jacks with his teeth on the dining room table.

As an adult, I still only brush my teeth for four seconds a session, but I realized that I no longer had to suffer the indignities of using a Crest or Colgate product I despised-- I could shell out three more dollars a tube for some bullshit, hippy-dippy toothpaste with a different, more palatable flavor. Tom's of Maine makes a mango and orange toothpaste, which is usually available at Whole Foods and other overpriced, feel good about yourself establishments. I wouldn't say that my toothbrushing experience is now a sun-filled jubilatory experience-- but it's probably increased to maybe six or seven seconds a session.

I wasn't thrilled about the price hit I was forced to take, simply for hating mint. Why should I be penalized for having tastes that differ from the norm? Wasn't I punished enough for that malfeasance in middle and high school? Nevertheless, I dutifully paid my five dollars a tube for my orange mango paste. However, yesterday at Whole Foods, Tom's of Maine Orange Mango paste was nary to be found.

"Oh, fuck," I moaned-- apparently audibly-- as a young mom noticeably pulled her young daughter over to the next aisle. All of the other stupid Tom's of Maine flavors were there, and they were all on sale for $4.49 a tube. Cinnamon? Hmmm.... I was dubious. I like cinnamon in Snickerdoodles and in apple pie, but cinnamon toothpaste was a dangerous choice: back in the '80s, my mother was a habitual user of a vile cinnamon-flavored toothpaste and mouthwash called "Viadent" and I used to scream and howl when she would kiss me goodbye before the schoolbus came when she had used it.

"NO VIADENT KISSES! AUAAAUUUUGGH!" I would yell to the assured bemusement of our neighbors. They probably thought I was being tortued by some escaped Nazi dentist.

Then, I nearly reached for the fennel-flavored paste. I thought to myself: fennel? Do I want to be that guy? No, I decided. So, what did I pick?

Lemon-flavored toothpaste, for $6.69. By a company called "Homeodent."

"Homeodent?!" my wife gasped in between breathless cackles. "That's gay!"

As frustrating and disappointing as my shopping experience had been, two things, though, were solidified after I brushed my teeth last night.

I picked the right toothpaste, and the right wife.

Night Terrors

Do you live in fear of it, too?

I do.

I have to say I'm more than a little freaked out about things happening to/around me while I'm vulnerable-- while I'm.... asleep.

Obviously I'm not afraid of being violated in some way by a stranger-- not with my wife right next to me-- but I am always at least a little scared of something unpleasant or dangerous or cataclysmic happening while I'm asleep, unable to do anything to prevent the situation, or take any measures to defend myself, or my wife-- or even the dog.

Sleep is a funny state, because your mind can convince you that anything's happening and that anything's real. I was in the middle of a dream last night where two actors dressed as cops were beating each other up in a play, and then one started pulling the other one around the whole stage by his penis. And then a guy sitting in the audience with me, who was apparently Samuel French, started randomly signing autographs and laughing like a madman. This all seemed extremely plausible to me at the time. Just then, I heard this tremendous tumbling sound and I immediately woke up-- or did I wake up and then hear the tumbling sound? It sounded like someone was jumping up and down on our window air conditioning unit. But that didn't make sense-- not like someone pulling someone else around by his penis made sense. I whispered in that shrill, nighttime way to Mrs. Apron:

"Hey! Did you hear that?"

"No," she said.

"You didn't hear that? It was a huge, big noise!"

"It couldn't have been a huge, big noise, because then I would have heard it, too."

Had I been more awake, I would have questioned the logic in this argument but, as it was, I just resigned myself to my obvious fate: we were about to be murdered in our bed by a sociopathic intruder who would have just quietly robbed us of all of our worldly possessions but is now furious because he just tripped over some piece of random shit downstairs. He will, at any second, burst through our bedroom door and scream,

"JESUS FUCKING CHRIST! Why don't you people put your shit away!? I've never seen such a messy house before! Do you have any idea what I just fell over downstairs?! A fucking pile of wood from an unassembled shelf, a goddamned banjo, and six dog toys! Now, say goodbye, motherfuckers!!!"

And then the shooting begins.

Goodbye, motherfuckers.

Fortunately, this did not come to pass. There was no intruder, though I did stay up for an exceedingly long time waiting for one. Next, my racing thoughts turned to the next obvious cause of such a loud noise: the gas heater in the basement. To me, that people can live in houses heated by flammable substances every day is just as miraculous as planes that stay in the air every day which is just as miraculous as the alleged events of Ascension Thursday. That said, I'm always expecting our house to blow up. With any luck, it will be while we are both at work and the dog has let himself out, but we all know that I'm not lucky.

And so I wanted for either flames to slowly engulf the house or for us to be overcome by carbon monoxide fumes.

That didn't happen either.

I was somewhat purturbed by Mrs. Apron's inherent lack of concern over situations that bring me such marked distress. Then again, I guess it's good she's different from me in that respect, or we'd both be donning tactical vests and loading pump-action shotguns everytime the floorboards creaked. She requires actual evidence before she reacts to something-- all I require is a frenzied halfthought. I guess it's good I never became a cop. Come up to my patrol car window and tap on it to ask for directions to the nearest K-Mart?

BLAM! There goes your head.

I was pretty relieved and pleased this morning when the alarm clock went off and the house was not a pile of rubble and we were both not dead.

"You really freaked out about something last night," my wife said to me.

"Well, something happened!" I protested.

"Mmm-hmm."

After we brushed our teeth and she got up to speed on the latest pathetic Dear Abby morons, I moved toward the staircase to go downstairs. I stopped. And stared. Because we're pretty slow with the unpacking process, we had left approximately ten empty boxes on the landing for a couple of weeks. This morning, there were only four boxes still left up there. Six had come to rest at the foot of the stairs. I threw two more boxes down the stairs, just to hear what it would sound like.

Like somebody jumping up and down on our window air conditioning unit.

This I Vow

While the day of our wedding is etched in my brain in a thousand images, the actual ceremony went by pretty fast.

I remember the one, thick hair that was stuck on the rabbi's right eyeglass lens, and how I was dying to say something to him about it, or to stick my finger inside there and just pull it out myself.

I remember the bees that descended on us, attracted perhaps as much by the scent of the sunflowers that adorned our chuppah as they were by the sickly sweetness of the Manischewitz wine the rabbi held. As the bees came to rest on the rim of the cup, and on his hand, his hand trembled as he tried to shake them off, spilling wine on his suit and on his prayerbook which, incidentally, he tried to use to assassinate one of the bees, by closing it inside the holy book.

I remember the bees that got stuck inside my wife's veil, prompting many bee-in-your-bonnet jokes afterwards that we pretended were funny, because we're so good natured and we realize that even lame people who make embarrassing jokes and puns need to feel good about themselves sometimes too.

I remember our vows, because we wrote them together. We wrote them on little scraps of paper after sitting in my wife's PT Cruiser in a parking lot the night before our wedding, waiting for a tow truck that never came. The tow truck was supposed to come, they way tow trucks do. The tow truck was supposed to come take away a 1966 Volkswagen Beetle, dressed in a Pearl White paint job, with red, white and blue stripes and a "53" on the doors, trunk and engine cover. We had *ahem* borrowed it from a VW dealership that was using it out front to draw in customers. This was the vehicle that, on October 22, 2006, was supposed to take me and my wife away from our wedding ceremony, onto our honeymoon, and into the rest of our lives together.

But it didn't.

It broke down twice on the night before our wedding, and we waited for the tow truck until 11pm. Or was it 11:30pm? Or 1am? Fortunately, I can't remember anymore. The point is, the motherfuckers never came, and we ditched the Beetle with a sign on it saying, "PLEASE DO NOT TOW" because, as our luck would have had it, a tow truck probably would have come at some point to take it away-- to an impound lot. Not a desired outcome.

Our vows were cute, they were individual, they were "of us." People complained that they couldn't really hear them, but we were outdoors, and, like I said, they were "of us" and they were for us, so whether people heard or not, well, it doesn't really matter. We promised to hold each other's hands when we get scared, and we've gotten scared since-- and we've done as we promised. We promised to save the last rye chip in the bag of Chex Mix for the other, and we've done that. We promised to wait together for tow trucks in the middle of the night-- ah, topical humor...

But there wasn't all that traditional muck about sickness and in health, richer or poorer, all that. But it's implied. I thought about that this weekend as I was behind my wife, rubbing her back and holding her hair back as she projectile vomited into toilets in Pennsylvania and onto lawns in Maryland. Marrying someone is when you know you love them. When you hug someone who stinks of vomitus, well, that's when you're sure.

Through sickness and health.

Check.