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| by Anna Collins What’s up with all this teeth whitening? Since when has having a smile like Liberace been a top priority? Everywhere you go there are products urging you to whiten your teeth and brighten your smile. Bleaching, teeth strips, gargling with Clorox, it’s all so absurd. Just another superficial activity to keep us occupied and our minds off the real problem – rampant stupidity. Instead of brightening the teeth how about brightening the brain? How about some strips for the cerebrum? Slap a nice, big jumbo strip right on the ol’ left side. Wouldn’t it make your day go a lot smoother with brighter brained people in it? It would make a great TV commercial, too – starring you! Close-up on a brain-dead bagger in the grocery store as he puts a two-gallon plastic container of detergent and three glass jars of tomato sauce in one thinner-than-Nicole Richie plastic bag, so that when you get home and the bag finally breaks and the jars of tomato sauce shatter all over your nice clean tile floor, you can shake your head, look at the camera and say: “Now he could have used a Cerebrum Strip!” Back to the teeth. Being a careful researcher for my columns, I tried the tooth-whitening thing to see if it would change my life. Because really, isn’t that the message? Isn’t that what the ad companies are telling us – that using their product is going to change your dull, gray, overweight, underpaid, sleepless, depressed, impotent, brown-toothed, loveless life? So if you don’t have the brightest, shiniest, most stunningly white teeth this side of the Rio Grande, you will most assuredly be looked upon as a dim-witted, uncool, socially inept pariah that will never have sex with anyone better looking than a bridge troll. If you get right down to it, that’s what most ads ever really say anyway: Use this product and have sex with somebody good for a change. It’s all about looks. That’s why you never see ads with hot people in them advertising a Honda Civic. It’s a great car; gets good gas mileage, has a reliable engine and is a perfect car for dyslexics – but as far as getting righteous babes or buff hunks with it – you might as well stamp an “L” on your forehead and take the bus. I experimented with various whitening methods. I first tried Rembrandt toothpaste, so I could have the illusion that a great dead artist was painting my teeth. After using it for only two days, breathing hurt. My teeth were so sensitive, eating pudding was like chewing a wad of aluminum foil. I could have cared less if my teeth were jet black – I just wanted to chow again without feeling like I was in the dentist scene from "Marathon Man." Then a friend suggested I go to his dentist and get custom-fitted teeth trays you wear for two weeks. You squirt in the whitening solution and slip the trays over your teeth – and then sleep that way. After 14 days – voila! Radiant teeth. Right. Duration: One night, and no sleep due to bulky apparatus in the mouth coupled with the fear of choking. Next. This next one is a doozy. Get this: a light you shine on your teeth to make them white! Swear to God. Just this little light you hold in your mouth that’s pointed at your teeth. Magic, right? Oh, did I mention it’s not just the light; it comes with an FDA grade silicone tray, a double-barrel syringe (what are we in the wild, wild west?) and a tooth-whitening agent. Gee, you don’t suppooooose the tray and the tooth-whitening agent have anything to do with whitening the teeth, do you? Naw, they wouldn’t scam us like that, it must be the “magic light.” And I’m the Tooth Fairy. Also, as an added bonus, the light looks like an adult pacifier when you have it in your mouth. Make up your own jokes, folks. Admittedly, I did not try this method myself because it was TOO STUPID! Of course, now you can get the whitening strips you just place over your teeth like dental Wite-out. Not for me. I’m afraid I may swallow one and end up with a terminal case of gleaming stomach. Listen, I have to go – I need some more black coffee. (Big smile) And that's the view from this broad.
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Copyright 2007 - Anna Collins - All Rights Reserved