Dear Toothpick

Dear Toothpick,

Wow - I really needed you this evening, and you were there when I needed you. Thank you so much.

You see, I decided that I wanted to eat a mango tonight. I went to the grocery store with the intention of just picking up some bagels for breakfast tomorrow, but I made the mistake of wandering through the produce aisle before I got there, and those mangoes were calling my name.

Which is interesting - because, if you know me, you know that I happen to be a mango snob. Big-time. Time after time people have offered me juicy, delicious mangoes for my eating enjoyment, and I have declined or dismissed their deliciousness as nothing special. Why, you ask? I'll tell you why. I blame it on my time in Tanzania. See - when I was living in Tanzania, they had "mango season." People here in the States may not understand that kind of thing because we can generally get unnaturally ripe fruits any old time of the year, but in Tanzania, there was a mango season.

And during that season, there were mangoes. Millions of them. Cheap, juicy, fresh and REAL mangoes. And this is the kicker - they were f-ing HUGE. While pretty much every other fruit and vegetable in Tanzania was much smaller than the behemoths we have become used to in the industrialized world (with the exception of the ginormous avocadoes), the mangoes were about the size of a Nerf Turbo football. If you don't know what that is, picture a semi-mini-football made out of fun noodle material with a rocket tail on the end. That's what I'm referring to. And if you still can't picture the size of said object, just know that it's freaking HUGE for a mango.

Point being - not only were the mangoes much tastier in Tanzania than anywhere else I've ever been (including Chinatown), they were about three times larger. And we're in America, so we KNOW that bigger is better.

Right. So, in spite of everything I just wrote above, I had the urge to eat a mango tonight, and I indulged said urge. And what happened? Well, I started off being all careful and "civilized" about the whole deal - cutting off the peel and then cutting small slices of mango flesh to eat a piece at a time. And that was okay, but it just wasn't as satisfying as I would have liked. So I did what any self-respecting mango-eater would do - I started to gnaw that mango flesh straight from the pit. And I was rewarded with much more satisfaction and taste.

But I was also punished - and viciously. Because (if you've ever gnawed a mango, you know this well) those little stringy bits of gnawed mango made their way into my teeth. About a million of them. Tiny, teentsie strings caught right up between every one of my teeth (and a few strings per tooth). It was terrible. That feeling of a whole bunch of crap caught in my teeth - it was like I had been scraping bark off a tree with my bottom teeth. Or if I had been vacuuming a shaggy carpet with my face. Terrible.

And that's where YOU came into play, Toothpick. Now, I know there are a lot of people out there who would have gone to Dental Floss in that situation - and I have nothing against them - but I knew that YOU were the one I needed. I knew that Dental Floss - although effective - just wouldn't give me the tool-using pleasure that you would provide. And I was right. I had to work at my teeth for quite a while to reach maximum tooth-gap cleanage, but I reached it, and I felt like I EARNED it. There's just something less manly about using Dental Floss - like trying to pick a fight while drinking a beverage through a straw - it just doesn't FEEL right. It does the trick, but . . .

No. Not for me. I go with you every time. I feel like I'm going back to my roots when I use you, Toothpick. Plus, there's the added bonus of being able to chew on you and flip you around in my mouth after your practical use is over. And there will never be a day when somebody can use Dental Floss to clean their teeth with just their lips and tongue - unlike my very special skills with you. You're just so COOL, Toothpick. So very, very cool.

That's why restaurants offer you. That's why sandwiches are held together with big yous. That's why people build ridiculous models with you. Because you are so damn awesome.

And so I wrote you this letter. As a testament to your unparalleled coolness in the tooth-gap-cleaning world (don't even MENTION Toothbrush to me right now). And as a long-overdue thank you for the years and years of oral fixative pleasures you have provided me. You just keep on doing what you're doing, and I'll always choose YOU.

Looking so cool as I flip you,
CVT