Dental Provision

I was very happy yesterday as it was a New Toothbrush Day. It is a mysterious joy to buy and use a brand new toothbrush and be able to feel the difference in tooth hygiene that comes only once in the life of any toothbrush.

The old one was beyond its best and slightly splayed, it was no longer fully capable of doing its job. Don't get me wrong, it was a fine brush, and had been a worthy companion in 3 countries, but its time had come. So, upon by return from Deutschland I had one last brush with it yesterday morning, before throwing it into the bin and hence forcing the purchase of a replacement high up in the list of priorities.

Later on I was there, in Boots, buying more linctus cough juice nectar, which contrary to specualtion I am not addicted to - I can give up whenever I like. I may not have a cough any more, but I'm just being thorough. Anyway, with part 1 of the Boots mission complete, it was onto mission 2 - toothbrush acquisition! But there was an unforseen barrier -

While I am not a creature of strict habit, there are a number of instances when I will resort to the same simple thing even given a wide selection of possibilities some of which could be better. I do this mainly, I believe, because trivial choice scares me and can be overwhelming to the point of abulia. The toothbrush type I normally buy is great: easily manoeuverable, nice and firm, durable and most importantly offers very effective teeth cleaning. I have no reason to change.

But, as you may have guessed, there were none of them there! Oh, yes, there were many 'Medium' bristle strength ones, for small children, spinsters and people with inferior gums... but no 'Firm'ly be-bristled ones. I had 4 options: a) just leave and never buy a toothbrush again, b) ask one of the ladies if they would go and search for some firm ones in the stock room, c) leave, walk to another shop and look there or d) risk eveything and buy a different toothbrush model.

After carefully weighing up all of the options I decided that a-c) were overreactions and that d) held the one true path for the future. And joy unbounded! There was a 2 for 1 offer on! Hurrah. Problem solved, and I ended up with 2 brushes, when I had needed but one.

However, the Lord had a plan of provision. It turned out that HM John, when he returned from Spain late last night, had left his toothbrush there, and would have to have fetid teeth all night. The coincidence was too much for me and I gave him one of my 2 new brushes.

So happy was he that he quicky opened the packaging and had a good old brosse-a-dents as you can see from the following pictures:

In everything it appears, the Lord provideth.