This is a guest post by my talented sister, Jessica Grissinger.
It began with me having a dentist appointment in the middle of the day. It was obvious to me that I wouldn’t have time to go back to my house to brush my teeth for my appointment, so I had the great idea to bring mouthwash with me to use on the way to my car. Everything about that day was going great, I was even a bit ahead of schedule. That is, until I got on the elevator to go down to my car. I made sure that I was getting on an empty elevator so that I could clean my teeth in private. You don’t see people swigging mouthwash on a regular basis so I thought it was something that would be embarrassing to do in public. Then again, I have to leave the room to blow my nose if I'm in class, so maybe it’s all in my head.
I quickly glugged some mouthwash after getting into the elevator. My plan was to get off the elevator, find a trashcan, spit out said
mouthwash and get on my merry way.
Three floors from my destination, a mother and her daughter got on with me. "Oh my gosh what do I do?" I thought. Given my fear of being thought of as a public mouthwashing weirdo, I try to hide the liquid in the back of my mouth and avert my eyes to the dirty corners of the elevator.
By the way, isn’t it just a given that you don’t talk to strangers in an elevator? Sadly, my efforts were to no avail. It turns out that they were attending a college orientation that morning. Here I was, a living, breathing-through-her nose college student they could ask questions of. It was already too late for me to put in my ear buds and it would have been very rude to ignore them. In a moment of bravery that will never receive the recognition it deserves, I swallowed my mouthful of Crest. Just in case anyone is curious, the intense minty flavor burns like heck. Right as I gulped, I remembered the warning on the back label to not swallow any amount of this stuff, and here I am downing a good bit of it. I don’t know if they could tell that I was in shock by the burning sensation going down my throat and the fear that I might keel over right there from alcohol poisoning, but I’m pretty sure I hid my emotions quite well. There might have been a slight twitch in my right eye as this was all happening. I then answered their questions and we chatted a bit until they got off one floor before my stop. I can honestly say I probably had the cleanest breath those dentists have been around all day.
Three floors from my destination, a mother and her daughter got on with me. "Oh my gosh what do I do?" I thought. Given my fear of being thought of as a public mouthwashing weirdo, I try to hide the liquid in the back of my mouth and avert my eyes to the dirty corners of the elevator.
By the way, isn’t it just a given that you don’t talk to strangers in an elevator? Sadly, my efforts were to no avail. It turns out that they were attending a college orientation that morning. Here I was, a living, breathing-through-her nose college student they could ask questions of. It was already too late for me to put in my ear buds and it would have been very rude to ignore them. In a moment of bravery that will never receive the recognition it deserves, I swallowed my mouthful of Crest. Just in case anyone is curious, the intense minty flavor burns like heck. Right as I gulped, I remembered the warning on the back label to not swallow any amount of this stuff, and here I am downing a good bit of it. I don’t know if they could tell that I was in shock by the burning sensation going down my throat and the fear that I might keel over right there from alcohol poisoning, but I’m pretty sure I hid my emotions quite well. There might have been a slight twitch in my right eye as this was all happening. I then answered their questions and we chatted a bit until they got off one floor before my stop. I can honestly say I probably had the cleanest breath those dentists have been around all day.
Julia Vincent Hetherton
No comments:
Post a Comment