Open Writing

“Brian, why are your teeth all green?”

An inquisitive 10-year-old came out with his candid enquiry after staring at my mouth for a while.

“They might be green,” I answered, “but they’re all mine”.

Thirty years later there might be fewer of them, but they are still all mine. A couple of them had gold or porcelain crowns attached for a while. But you know what that means — you pay huge amounts for those things, and they fall off. Excavation of the remnants is then required, if you want to avoid nasty things like root canal torture and yet more crowns which are going to fall off.

The most complex bit of excavation done in my mouth entailed me spending a few hours of my 65th birthday under anaesthetic. How nice. But I have no pain now, mother dear.

Unlike most civilised people, I do not use a toothbrush. Because I am not monodental, I use a teethbrush. And that is what I really want to ask you about. Is there a teethbrush which you can use comfortably on the back of your teeth as well as the front?

The twin-tone gadget with a curvy handle I used this morning is one of the latest in modern design. Well, I think it must be, because it has little functional value. Brush the front, up and down, round and round, side to side, that’s fine. But then I try to hold the brush the other way round and brush the backs of those teeth which are all mine. No way!

The handle was probably designed by a young boffin who is very good with CAD, computer aided design, but knows nothing about the human hand. Or teeth. When I brush the fronts, the handle fits nicely into my hand. My thumb rests ergonomically in the nice little groove and my fingers wrap around the carefully styled thick piece at the other end. Turn it all round, to tackle the back, and it is impossible to get a grip on the stupid thing. My thumb fumbles and slides round the edge; my fingers can’t find their way round the reversed curve.

The experience is almost the same as trying to use a fish-knife when you’re left-handed. The designers of those things just don’t understand our problems. It’s a conspiracy of course. They’re in league with teethbrush manufacturers.

Whatever happened to sensible straight-up-and-down teethbrushes? Aha, they are still available. They come in no-name packs. You can get a bubble-card of three for a very low price, and you think you’re getting a real bargain. Not so! If there’s one thing worse than fumbling thumbs and sliding fingers, it’s a mouthful of bristles. It starts with the first brushing, when you have that strange sensation between your gum and your lips. You grope around, and remove a fallen bristle. Within a week, you’re harvesting them by the dozen.

My father’s teeth were yellow. When I was 10 I used to watch him take them out at night and put them into a cup. I suppose I could avoid the problem of ridiculous modern teethbrushes if I had removable teeth like Dad’s. But I also recall the agonised yell when a single raspberry pip got stuck between his denture and his palate. He would rapidly take out the denture, remove the pip, and put his teeth back into his mouth. At the dining table, that was as entertaining as the way he used to cut his toenails while I was having breakfast, and I had to protect my bowl of cereal from the clippings which flew through the air.

Perhaps, one day, an intelligent manufacturer of teethbrushes will realise that all these fancy curvy things are useless. I hope and pray that it will happen while I still have my own green teeth.
Something to look forward to in my old age.

© Copyright 2004 Brian Barratt