Flossing is bad for you

I know this is hard for you to hear, but it’s true. There are some things in life we just hold to be absolute truths, primarily because some “expert” has told us so. But ever notice how those experts just happen to get rich off of us following their advice? I bet if you just finished a three-year orthodontia treatment and left your doctor’s office, crossed the street and went right into another one’s office, they’d put 12 cents worth of metal and two rubber bands in his mouth and ask for $6000. Wake up, people! My grandpa had a massive heart attack and probably could have pulled through…but medicare (meaning, YOU) decided to listen to a “doctor” and pony up around $100,000 for open-heart surgery and something called “angioplasty.” I mean, come on….if you’re going to make up a procedure at least give it a normal-sounding name. And after that guess what? They told grandpa he couldn’t even go out and work for months. What kind of “heart healthy” advice is that?? They tell us a sedentary life is bad for our hearts, but then after you pay them $100,000 to “fix” you up all of the sudden it’s don’t run, don’t work, don’t climb stairs??

So I went to the dentist recently and one of those “hygienists” went to work on my teeth. (Did you know that “hygienist” comes from Latin? The root, “hyg,” means “one who gets paid a lot for,” and the suffix “ienist” means “flossing your teeth.”) Now, these aren’t the most highly-trained people in the world. In fact, from my understanding, hygienist schools recruit largely from the pool of people who flunk flight attendant school.

Also, these are brutally violent, sadistic people. We tend to think of the dentist that way, but he’s actually not too bad. I mean, at least he uses novocaine. But the hygienist just goes right in there, scraping and prodding places that haven’t been touched in years, or since the last time you saw the hygienist, whichever is more recent (and honestly…come on….it’s years).

I think they have a lot of resentment because they work with a professional (the dentist) who actually does real work and helps you. Whereas the hygienist, as stated, just flosses you and pours you watered-down cups of Listerine. Oh, and the scraping. Lots of the scraping. So basically they’re using the oldest tools in man’s arsenal – a pointy edge and a piece of string – to work on your mouth. You could train an ape to do what they do. Actually, I think an ape would get bored in the job.

So the last time I was there, after making a prodigious amount of blood come pouring out of my mouth, the professional flosser started to berate me about, well, flossing. It is the only thing she knows, after all. So apparently I wasn’t flossing enough. She just went on and on and on about this, like, way over the top.

So after my appointment, not so much because I respected this woman’s opinion, but out of curiosity, I bought some floss and started to floss on a daily basis, every night before bed. Now buckle up for the truth collision folks….FLOSSING MAKES YOU NEED TO FLOSS MORE. It doesn’t help. It’s counter-productive. See, let’s pretend your teeth are like a bunch of sexy, sexy college girls. Okay, that seems a little off topic and I think I was just getting away from myself. Nevermind. Anyway, picture that gap between your teeth – any two teeth – and now picture no floss ever going there. No problem…they stay pretty much wedged together. Start flossing, however, and all of the sudden you're opening up these little nooks and crannies….floss for a few days and suddenly after breakfast one morning you’ve got food stuck everywhere and it’s driving you nuts. What do you have to do? Go floss. And by flossing, you’ve just primed your teeth for lunch…you might get a whole shrimp stuck between your incisors and your canines. Altogether now, kids…”vicious cycle!” It got so bad I had to floss after drinking orange juice! You can’t stop this…there is literally nothing you can do to break free of this Twilight Zone episode of dental “hygiene.”

And here’s the real kicker….my hygienist’s name? The one who got me started on this and even followed the first-time’s-free maxim of all dealers with a gratis mini-roll…the one who knew I would be buying spool after spool of dental floss? Kim Johnson-and-Johnson. That’s right…heir to the biggest flossing fortune in the world.

Don’t be fooled. Down with flossing. Let mine be a lesson to you all. And if you don’t believe me, think of it this way – have you ever, ever seen a dental professional floss (all answers from people who share a bathroom with a dental professional will be excluded)?

I didn’t think so.