The Scoop on Crest Whitestrips

Hi. It's gotten cool and windy here and it's most exhilarating. Walked the neighborhood after dark and enjoyed it thoroughly. Fall is my favorite season. When I was a kid it was spring, unequivocally, 'cause winter seemed so cold and drab (and this was a Florida winter, mind you). Then summer was my next favorite, because that was so much fun, all the swimming and no school and such. FALL! Fall was gross, fall was what led into winter. At least winter had Christmas. What did fall have?? I couldn't think of anything except a reminder that a LONG school year lay ahead. Well, then there was Annie's Thanksgiving dinner, that was the highlight. Still, fall was more icky to me than winter, which put fall squarely last in my order of seasons. Then in my early 20's I lived in NC. One fall afternoon I was sitting on the bleachers at a school soccer game. It was an exquisite fall day. This lady said, Fall is my favorite time of the year. I was thrown for a 360* loop. FALL?? FAVORITE??? I thought the lady was nuts. But now I know she was just smart. And let's not fail to notice, NC actually has a fall, a noticeable change of season, whereas Florida's seasons all meld together into a mishmash of lukewarmness, except summer, where there is no denying the scorching heat and humidity. Most people seem to love fall best, do you?

Last night I tried the Crest Whitestrips for the first time. I dutifully read all the instructions and FAQ. It boils down to four easy steps, so all that reading material on the website is a bunch of ado about nothing: 1) Don't brush your teeth (don't? . . . whatever) 2) Put strip on teeth 3) Suck it in 4) Set kitchen timer for 30 minutes. A little more elaborately, you open the little packet, remove the very thin, VERY flimsy, sorta gooey strip off the plastic card/holder thingy and place Whitestrip across your teeth. Tuck it under to the back of the teeth so it'll hold. Wash goo off hands. Oh yeah, and don't laugh. Ta-da! That was hard. I find it good to do something quiet that distracts me from a mouth-full of foreign substances, like type my blog. The hydrogen peroxide foams up a little. I want to move the whole works around with my tongue. Also, it can slip and slide practically of its own free will, hence the sucking action to create a vacuum-like seal so it sticks . . . sort of. At any rate, don't really want the little strip floating off down the hatch, although in the FAQ they said not to worry about it if that happens. Still, the strip floating off too soon would defeat the purpose, to my way of thinking. I got a little confused about which side to place on the teeth because I wasn't paying attention, my first time and all, not knowing what to expect. Of course you put the gooey side against the teeth, but if you over-handle this little delicate strip, it gets gooey all over. PLUS, it seems fragile enough to tear easily. Yes, it is MOST dainty, remember that. Today I mentally reviewed the process, I'm The Smart One, you know (choke), and I realized that if I don't over-think this I'm going to be just fine. OBVIOUSLY when you peel the Whitestrip off its plastic, the gooey side had to be face down on the plastic, duh. So slap that little baby right on the old yellow teeth before you forget and get mixed up.

I have to say, Crest has a real little clever thing going here. Still, the trouble of beauty, or at least of white teeth. They say you can use certain of the Whitestrips twice a day. Oh yeah, there is a whole list of variations of Whitestrips. But get real, TWICE a day? NO WAY. Wonder if sparkly, spanky white teeth is going to lead me straight into wanting a nose job?

BTW, my sister has lovely, white teeth. Pure white. When her son was young he said to his mother, Your teeth look yellow. She laughed and said, What do you mean? Like corn on the cob, he complimented. And he wasn't talking about the white Silver Queen variety, either. School bus yellow horse corn feed is more like it. They start young, don't they? Men . . . honestly.

Okay, so that was everything you never wanted to know about Whitestrips. What I'm NOT going to do is get my teeth so white that I suddenly seem to be ALL BLARING WHITE TEETH, WHOLE WHITE GLOWING TEETH AND NOTHING BUT WHITE GLARING TEETH. I've seen people like that. When I talk to them I feel like I need sunglasses. I can't listen to what they're saying to me because I'm so intrigued with the OVERKILL FACTOR. I have a picture of someone, a teenager, and the teeth are so white that I had to take it down from the fridge, it literally made me nauseous. There must be a connection to this and the bright white skies that give me headaches. Yes, that's what it is.

The other night I wrote an article for submission to a paying enterprise. The instructions were to submit a story between 700-900 words. I was actually using something from my blog and when I plugged it into Desktop or whatever, I clicked on word count (can you BELIEVE I even found word count?), and my story was 644 words or so. So, I set about adding to and revising. When I finished that, I clicked word count and it was just below 900 words. I tweaked some more and wound up with EXACTLY 900 words. I needed to tweak even further so if I added three words here, I had to subtract three words there, and so on. It was lots of fun. When I finally submitted it I wrote, This story contains exactly 900 words. I wanted to impress the lady. I'm sure the story is in the trash bin, except I emailed it, so the woman's DELETE BUTTON on her computer is probably singed, along with her toasted little finger, she hit it so good and hard and fast, to be sure there was no mistake, to be sure it was wiped out of her system, you know?

Okay, when I'm really tired I just write about WHATEVER. I don't have the umph to write a real story, which can take me a very long time. Mike says I shouldn't edit so much. But let me tell you something, if I don't edit right on the spot, it is not going to happen. Point of proof, I have a note to edit a couple of blogs from three weeks ago. For one of them, I thought of something that was just perfect, but I was in the shower. I didn't mentally tell myself, REMEMBER THIS. I didn't rehearse it until I knew I wouldn't forget it. So, I forgot it. It bugged me to pieces. I think it's gone forever. That used to bother me a lot, when I'd lose an idea, but now I think, Well, obviously a shortage of words doesn't seem to be my problem, and I have to let it go. Like on my Curious George story, I worked forever editing it and then when I hit PUBLISH POST, I didn't get the usual, YOUR BLOG HAS SUCCESSFULLY PUBLISHED. Instead I got a blood chilling, YOU NEED TO SIGN IN AGAIN. WHOA! When I signed in again, the edits hadn't taken. RATS! I sat there for the longest time recreating my edits, because I knew if I didn't, I'd forget everything. At least the basic story hadn't poofed into thin air. Gads. I KNOW I didn't remember every edit, which edits to me are an improvement over the original. Mike doesn't "get" that. But everyone has their own "artistry" that can't be denied. I was still working when Mike came down at 7:00 AM. I told him my sad soupy story. Then I added, But I'm not going to sweat it BECAUSE THAT IS LIFE. He said, I'm proud of you. And to help myself pretend to feel good about it, I said, Plus, I ended up inserting things that weren't in the first edit. So, it all comes out in the wash. Seriously, doesn't all of life just come out in the wash?

Oops! I do believe I'm giving away all my trade secrets. However, as you may have guessed, there isn't a whole lot I keep secret. I'm just not that kind of person. BUT, if you tell me a secret, I have learned to keep it FOR SURE. Sometimes, to get DTD'S attention, I'll say, very secretive-like, I have a secret. She's all primed, eyes aglow, and asks, WHAT? Then I tell her something, sheerly secretive delightful and earth-shattering, like, So and So dyed her hair blond. DTD deflates like a pricked balloon. But secrets like this give DTD good eye rolling practice -- have to provide opportunity for her to exercise her skills, keep them up to par, right?

Your Fall Favorite, White Toothed, Edit Crazy KEM

P.S. I am getting the hang of using ABC check for my blog. I forget most of the time, though.