Dental Floss

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This morning, when I had finished using it, I measured the length of my dental floss. It was twenty and a half inches. According to the label there are 43.7 yards (40 meters) on the spool. I floss nearly every day, probably 360 times a year. That would take 7,380 inches of floss or 4.7 spools. My father lived to be 96. If I do the same, (Strangely I find that I’ve come to assume I will.) that would be another 24.75 years, or measured in spools of dental floss, 116.3. My life expectancy measured in feet of dental floss is about 15,221¼ . Of course if I live to be 96 I may not floss on the day I die. Why would anyone floss during the last month of life? The whole point of dental hygiene, the brushing, the flossing, the going to the dentist, is to not out live your teeth. I think a person could safely quit flossing at least 2 years before dying.

My current floss is described on its container with 6 words. Isn’t that remarkable? Here they are: Crest, Glide, Deep, Clean, Cool, and Mint. So, two names, two adjectives and some kind of compound grammatical error. I guess what was meant was “deep cleaning”.

I once thought it might be interesting to compose a list of the most boring things I do. The first item on my list was flossing. On a recent visit to my optometrist I was instructed in a certain ritual cleaning of my eye lashes to be carried out each morning. Fat chance I’m going to start that.