Oh toothpaste, how you have let me down! You promise so many things! In your TV commercials you tell me that no person can respect, love or enjoy the company of someone without shiny, white teeth. You tell me that the reason that I’m not successful in life is because my choppers are too dull. You say that if my bicuspids were whiter, I’d smile more often, be more popular and have a more positive attitude towards life.

And it’s not just the positive hopes that have imprisoned me in your diabolical trap, but also the fearsome negatives… those scary promises that you and your cohorts with the drills have pounded into my brain since the days of my youth. My enamel will never, EVER grow back!  Drinking pop or coffee may as well be drinking battery acid!  If I forget to brush before I sleep, when I wake, after I eat, or snack, or chew too much… I could contract all sorts of terrible, fatal diseases like tartar buildup, halitosis, bleeding gums, heart disease, arthritis, or even cancer!!!

“BUT NEVER FEAR!”, you say, “I, TOOTHPASTE, will make it all better!”

And I try to follow your ways!  I try to keep up with this maniacally strict regimen of brush-rinse-floss-rinse-pick-swirl-massage-rinse-repeat, but FORGIVE ME TOOTHPASTE for I have sinned — it has been 12 hours since my last brushing!  Cleanse me of my filmy iniquity, wash me from the foul odor of last night’s garlic pizza.

I live in a world which is more concerned with my dental color and oral freshness than my talents, skills or personality qualities — so I need you.  I need you to make me right with the world.  I need you because there’s an outside chance that my wife and children may knock me out and leave me for dead on the side of the road if I wake up with dragon-breath one more time…

But alas, and to the shame of my family and kin, I have been using an older brand of toothpaste; one not fit for today’s diabolical dental attacks.  And so I have given my offering unto another, better, NEWER toothpaste!  It’s got baking soda. It’s got peroxide. It’s got ultra-foaming-action. It whitens, brightens, lightens, heightens and frightens plaque away.

And I brush.  Two times a day I brush. Yea, verily, three times daily do I brush.  Surely the wondrous technology captured within the chemicals of this intoxicatingly minty-mixture will overcome my shortfalls.  Surely this seven dollar tube of menthol flavored miracle juice will make my life better. Surely the science behind this cool-blue gel will finally bring me everything I’ve ever wanted: success, fame, fortune, the adulation of an adoring public, respect, a secure home, a blissful, pain-free existence!  Surely this is the missing link, the key to everything that I’ve ever hoped for!

But alas no. It has been two months now and I have no more fortune, success or adulation than I did before.  And so I have turned my wrath unto the giver of the great promises… my toothpaste.  I am angry with my toothpaste.  It has let me down.

But I saw a commercial last night for something called “botox” and those people were pretty happy… hmm…