Bad habits

I leave used dental floss on the coffee table, grimace, Sam hates it. He thinks it is disgusting and that I am a filthy pig, bordering on Satan. Or Beelzebub. Or whoever the worst one is. (Tony Abbott?)

Good grief, it's not as if I have crapped on the floor, or pissed on his leg... although he hates that, when I do it in the shower. (laugh) The pissing not the crapping. He kind of runs on his toes and squeals. Okay, he doesn't run on his toes, or squeal any longer, but he did once. Now he just gives me the death stare, long and still. Plain face, lips of string. He kinds of tilts his head in disbelief. I always think he is going to laugh, but he doesn't. The mouth like two lines doesn't break.

It is not like I leave chewed food on the backs of his hands, like my friend Rachel used to do to me. She would just take it out of her mouth and reach over and put it on my hand, then she'd smile, kind of laugh. It would lay there kind of warm, body temperature, going cold quickly.

I take long pieces of dental floss off the reel every time I need some. I don't know why, but I have always found relatively short pieces of floss difficult to use. I have been floss challenged all of my life, anything short of 30 centimetres and it just kind of slips through my fingers and I can't hold it.

I floss after every meal, I always get food caught between two of my teeth, if not more. Then I just curl it in coils like you do with rope, or extensions cords, onto the coffee table. I don't reuse it, or anything. Well, rarely. Occasionally. Maybe, if I have left it on a plate, or something and not just on the table and I got something else caught, just, that one thing. You know when you have just finished flossing and you have just the little bit more to eat and it always goes straight to the two teeth where food always gets caught and it gets caught. Maybe at those moments, I might pick it back up off the plate and reuse it.

I just think it is precious complaining about such things, though. There are people in the world who don't have access to fresh water, what do you think they would say? What does Sam think is going to happen? The spread of SARS? Flu? Poisoned food? HIV? Gangrene of the gums? How did I get such a precious boyfriend? Really? I ask you? I don't use somebody else's floss.

I used to know a couple where one of them would take over the chewing of the gum if the other one got sick of chewing. I mean, what is that about but, you know, who cares? If I had to make any comment on it, I guess I'd say it was kind of romantic.

Goodness me, you can "clean" yourself into oblivion. Actually, there are some researches who say the rise of asthma is because over the house hold cleaners we all now use.

There are a couple of them that I just hate, read loath. Blue loos, er! I can't stand them, they are completely wrong. Spray air fresheners always make me gag.

Aftershave. Okay, not quite the same thing, but it is kind of along the same idea and I just hate it.

I wear clean socks every day and clean undies, I don't reckon cleanliness needs to extend much passed that, not really. A quick wash behind the ears. Clean nails. Wash your hands after you pee. White teeth are good, well, just not brown teeth, let’s say. They don't have to be American white.

What else is there to get anxious about?

I used to wear clean shirts every day, ironically Sam taught me I didn't have to. And it works too, I can wear a shirt twice, more. I don’t actually sweat that much. Actually, I sweat a lot, I suspect that I have a slightly higher body temperature than other people, but I guess it has to be in micro degrees, whatever they would be called, otherwise I’d be dead, of course, it doesn’t take much. There is only a few degrees of leeway between healthy and dead. I don’t perspire, I don’t get smelly, I don’t get BO. I’ve used a crystal deodorant for many years, not that that seems to make much difference. 

I shower every day. Well, unless I am just at home and not going anywhere. I love those days, don’t you love those days? Those days where I remain in my pyjamas, track suit pants and my Explorer socks that have holes in the heels. Maybe on those days I don’t shower. Then it is those days that I am more likely to leave used dental floss on the coffee table.