Unhinged

Toothbrush hygiene
Tuesday, June 15, 2004, 10:41 AM

Sometimes I think my husband is only a few cans away from acting like Monk, at least as it concerns a toothbrush.I bought new toothbrushes for us to take on our Michigan wine trip at the end of October (2002), a pair of el cheapos, the kind I can toss with no regrets. I just don't like taking my at-home brush on trips. The possibility of alien germs, I guess. Maybe there's a bit of Monk in me, too, no?

After the trip, I gave my Michigan brush the heave-ho, but Ken brought his back and stuck it in the toothbrush holder right between our at-home toothbrushes. Oy. Out-of-state germs, out-of-state germs! So I made a stink about the extra toothbrush and he removed it. Later, I saw it back in the holder again. It looked like it had been held above a fire; its previous straight body had taken on a slight wavy shape.

"What gives with the freaky toothbrush that keeps haunting the bathroom?" I asked.

He said he'd microwaved it.

Yep.

Beause microwaving can get rid of the germs, right? And there has to be some sort of solution other than just pitching it, right?

The Sunday night following our trip, he used the microwaved toothbrush. He was giving his teeth a scrubbing any dentist would approve of when suddenly he felt the bristles go limp. When he pulled the toothbrush out of his mouth, he saw that over half of the bristles were gone. Then he looked in the mirror and lo! there were the missing bristles, sticking out of his mouth like porcupine quills.

He wants one of those electric toothbrushes now. I wonder if they're microwave safe?

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