River Brown

I haven’t done this in so long that I’m scared I forgot how. What happened to my writing life? Does translation count as writing? Does writing calibration count as writing?
Well at least the title came easily to me. You see, this is about dental floss. For years I have always used Reach dental floss and have only gone astray during emergency situations such as being away from home. The dentist always tells me that I do an amazing job and that leaves me wondering how others care for their teeth. I ALWAYS floss twice a day, don’t you? That’s what I was told to do.
About a week ago, I was at the store and noticed that the store’s brand of floss was two cents cheaper than my beloved Reach. Wanting to save up money and pinch every penny, I bought two packages.
That evening, as I yanked out a nice length of dental floss, I noticed that it was not as smooth on my fingers as Reach. As I flossed, the thread would get caught between my teeth and would then start to unravel in white frays, some of which were stuck on my teeth. I yanked out a longer piece and continued, stubbornly so as to show the world that two cents cheaper was worth it.
The next morning, as I rushed to brush my teeth and get out the door I ran into the same nuisance. Thin frays of floss were stuck in my teeth. I gazed at the the mangled floss in my fingers. Really? One of my molars felt tight as I realized that a small bit of floss was stuck in between. I had to use another bit of floss to try to get it out – oh I will spare you the agony… and the blood… and the wrinkled fingers that had borne tightly wrapped floss so as to turn them purple. But I refused to give in, to even admit that I had made the wrong choice in settling for a cheaper version. Floss was floss.
Every night and every morning witnessed the same torturous routine. And always there would be a chunk of floss getting stuck in between my teeth that would require time spent digging it out with more useless floss that ripped and shredded like when you pull apart a cotton ball. One night I must have spent half an hour trying to get at some thin remains of floss that were tickling my gums.
But I kept using that darn floss. And guess what? I finally ran out of it (because I started using yardstick length pieces for every tooth) and am using my smooth, easy glide, never shreds or sticks Reach! How amazing this brand of floss truly is!