This may be a bit out of sync chronologically but it’s too good a story not to share.
One of our first mornings in Portland visiting Mr. A’s sister and her family, I woke up bleary-eyed and tired after a late night of talking, eating, and catching up with family. I went in to take a shower since the kids were entertaining themselves watching “Wow, Wow, Wubzy” (groan. my frustration with Nick Jr. is another story entirely). Hot showers are how I wake up, rejuvenate, and convince myself that I really do have the energy and stamina to carry on in spite of body aches and little sleep. I love ADORE hot showers. I also adore camping trips like the one we’d just returned from, full of wildflowers, shallow rivers to wade in, and campfire smoke that permeates every article of clothing I own. I love getting dirty. And I LOVE getting clean afterwards.
So I get out of the shower, dry myself off and pull out the toothbrush. No toothpaste. Mr. A has not unpacked his bathroom bag with the toothpaste yet. Damnit. OK, Mrs. L (Mr. A’s sis) must have some spare toothpaste up here in the medicine cabinet somewhere. So I search. Keep in mind, having just gotten out of the shower I do not have my glasses on. Without them I can see fine, provided the object is within 2-3 inches of my face. After that I’m living in fuzzy -blur world. So I get my face inside, and I mean directly inside the medicine cabinet and I find a tube of toothpaste. I squeeze it onto the brush and begin scrubbing. But something doesn’t feel right. No suds. No foam. So I scrub a little harder, a little more. No, something’s not right. The toothpaste feels tacky, pasty. I keep brushing. It takes me a minute in my still-waking-up state to realize that perhaps what I put on my toothbrush was not toothpaste??
“Noooo!” is all they heard from the other end of the hall. All I could think was “Surely, I am not stupid enough to have made this mistake.” But, I did. In my blinded, going-through-the-morning-routine-on-autopilot mode I really did grab the other staple, besides toothpaste, that’s in the medicine cabinet of every toddler’s mom – Diaper paste. Yep, butt paste for the gums. And, man is that shit hard to clean out of toothbrush.
I can’t wait until I can afford Lasik.
