For the past two days I've called out of work because I was sick. Mostly I was feeling sick of working. Today though, on my return, I feel I'm actually coming down with something. Funny how that works, isn't it? My sleep wasn't great, full of dreams. None that I can remember now, but my dreaming mind was very active and impaired my sense of restfulness upon waking. After talking for the entire length of a 1.5 hour meeting I had to host at 9:30AM, my voice is raspy and I have a cough and headache. Oh well, the hard part of the day is over. The weather today is nicer than it's been in days. Blue skies. Perhaps I'll go for a walk to get some fresh air. There's likely some errand to run.
Errands are an affront to sanity. You work all day, for five out of the seven days in a week, and then, when you get some time to yourself, you need to do the things you couldn't do because you were working. My throat is suddenly killing me. I wonder if it has something to do with the hippie toothpaste I bought yesterday. Previously I'd been using this toothpaste I received as a Christmas gift from friends in Ireland. I think they were politely trying to tell me something about my breath or oral hygiene habits, but the toothpaste was amazing. It reminded me of the toothpaste the dentist would use on my teeth when I'd get a cleaning as a child. It had that old-school-cool taste, like it was made in the years after World War II. The greatest toothpaste for the greatest generation. I hadn't heard that phrase until yesterday, the greatest generation.
Back to the toothpaste. I'm about to run out of the tube they gifted me, so I figured I'd try some other exotic kind to see what kind of dental delights I've been missing out on all these years while using the pedestrian mainstream brands. So I got some organic toothpaste manufactured in India. What puzzles me is when you look at the ingredients on these natural toothpastes - and I looked at more than a handful of them yesterday - they all seem to have ingredients that are chemical. I know everything has a chemical composition, even natural ingredients like our dear friend H2O, but it's weird seeing them listed on a product advertising itself to you as natural. But I digress. I bought this toothpaste because it seemed more natural than the other natural toothpastes. When I got home I brushed my teeth with it. Have you ever used natural toothpaste before? The thing you notice is that they don't foam up. I think that's due of the absence of sodium lauryl sulfate, but it's weird just brushing paste all over your teeth because it quickly mixes with the saliva in your mouth until you're standing there watching yourself brush spit all over your teeth in front of your mirror.
I brushed them again this morning, as is customary - and an integral part of my waking routine - but now my breath stinks and I have a vaguely unpleasant taste in my mouth. It's kind of sweet and sour and causes me to produce a bit of excess saliva. I wonder if this is normal or if I've gotten myself a contaminated batch of toothpaste infested with harmful bacteria and fungal spores that are colonising my mouth as we speak. A kind of Indian rebellion of sorts, trying to hit the British back where it hurts the most - in their teeth. I'm not British though.
I'm just caught in the collateral damage that every war wreaks.
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