"Old age isn't a battle," Philip Roth once wrote. "Old age is a massacre."
One certainly suffers losses. First, friends and loved ones are scythed down by jealous time. Second, your body acts up in ways I shan't catalogue.
But there are also advantages. For instance, after decades of trying, I've finally gotten good at flossing. In my younger years, I'd begin with determination anew after every visit to the dentist. But weeks would pass, I'd skip a day, then two, and the little white box of floss would be pushed aside in the bathroom, ignored until the next visit.
Not anymore. Lately, I've been a champion, floss-wise. I'm not sure why — probably with the mounting problems of age, I don't want to lose my teeth too. I almost look forward to flossing, which gives you an idea of how exciting my life has become.
So when I got to the end of one spool Tuesday night, I immediately toddled off to my wife's bathroom to raid her supply, grabbing a package of GUM Fine Floss — mint, waxed, the good stuff.
As I opened it, I read this bit of ballyhoo on the package:
"UP TO 400 USES."
Four hundred ways to use dental floss?! I marveled. That's a lot of uses. I honestly couldn't imagine what they might be.
Finding your way out of a labyrinth? There had to be some very strange, esoteric, highly amusing suggestions from the GUM folks. I must know.
Jumping online, I found GUM to be a local establishment — part of SUNSTAR, a Japanese company whose American operation is based in Schaumburg. But no official "GUM 400."
I wrote to the folks at GUM (an abbreviation of "Gentle Uletic Massage," "uletic" meaning, "pertaining to gums") Tuesday night. Not expecting much. If you remember our bitter experience with Smuckers, trying to get them to explain why their natural peanut butter tastes so good, you'll know that my hopes for any given corporation deigning to comment on any given subject are slim.
Impatient, I explored online.
The first hit, "11 Surprising Uses for Dental Floss" by the American Association of Retired Persons (I'm telling you: old people, we love our floss). The first was not what I would call hip: "1. Remove skin tags" Were I composing that list, I'd lead with "7. Detach sticky cookies." From baking sheets if — what? — your spatula is broken?
The problem with the AARP list is, it's all notional. Is there anyone who actually uses dental floss to slice cheesecakes? (Answer: yes. YouTube offers many videos of cheesecakes being smartly cut with dental floss "No drag, no mess, perfection," says Chef Dave Martin. Eli's Cheesecake does not use floss to cut their cheesecakes — the crispy shortbread crust interferes — but does use it to slice unbaked pies).
The internet is alive with lists of ways to use dental floss other than to clean between your teeth. Hawaii's Kaua’i Hiking Tours offers "27 Survival Uses For Dental Floss," starting with (AARP take note) "1. Make a Lean-To" and including clotheslines, thread, shoelaces, and my favorite, as "dummy cord": a secure line to keep your knife or compass from tumbling out of your backpack and being lost.
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Another superpower! The ability to laugh at yourself.
ReplyDeleteCame across some generic Ritz one time in the snack aisle at Jewel labeled “Multi-Purpose Snack Crackers”. Can’t imagine they’d make a good lean-to
ReplyDeleteWere you just playing along with us as you do on April 1st?
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely not. The revelation at the end was all too real. The only poetic license here is that some of the floss details were discovered AFTER the grim truth was revealed to me. I presented them as I did for narrative motion — I only have 795 words to play with, and some streamlining is required.
DeleteWell, since I was quick to remark upon how I was too aware of the date to be fooled by the Dante column on April Fools Day, I must sheepishly concede that I was all-in for the 400 different ways to use dental floss.
DeleteLooking now, after being schooled by your wife, at the straightforward wording in the photo accompanying the article, it seems quite obvious that the "3.5 times more" helps denote what it's referring to. Unless one were to imagine that THIS floss has 400 things you can do with it, while run-of-the-mill floss offers only about 114. (Yes, that's intended to be a weak, pointless allusion to "The Mill on the Floss," by George Eliot.)
I would be curious to know how many "uses" any given individual actually does derive from that package. Painstakingly tallying each usage of the stuff could result in another educational column about this quotidian product. 😉
My dad was using it as thread over 60 years ago & I've used it the same way for some things.
ReplyDeleteBut only the nylon floss, never use Glide floss, it's just Teflon!
Your article made me question 400 uses. So according to my math: My dental floss is 55 yards or 165 feet =1980 inches. For 400 uses that would be less than 5” per use. My dentist says use 12”-18”. That would be a huge roll of floss.
ReplyDeleteI did use dental floss on a camping trip to sew the zipper that started to rip from the tent. It worked really well.
If 12"-18" is correct then the math works. The package in the picture states 200 yds (=600 ft = 400 18" lengths.)
DeleteWith a plethora of shame I admit I am a 75 year old flossing addict. I hate I mean HATE the feeling of anything caught between my teeth. And as my dentist explained the older I get the more likely food will become lodged and I will become more obsessive. I am doomed to an existence where I do not leave my home without a spool in my pocket!
ReplyDeleteA garrote?
ReplyDeleteAh, Terry. Will you please be in my bunker when the end times come? ;-)
DeleteI had a former police officer tell me how he'd seen victims tied with floss. Unbreakable and visciously cutting skin and veins, scarred for life.
DeleteSorry, that was dark.
I have to admit that it never occurred to me that the "400 uses" might not mean "400 uses other than or in addition to the ostensible use," even though such an assertion was absurd on its face and likely to consist of as you say purely "notional" uses. Certainly would have fooled me as an April Fool's gag.
ReplyDeletetate
Too many extraneous thoughts.
ReplyDeleteLodged in the crevices of my brain,
My cabeza needs a spool of mental floss.
Thanks for another entertaining column on the joys of language.
ReplyDeleteI was right there with you Mr. Steinberg. There was a literal lol.
ReplyDeleteModern medicine says there's a strong association between flossing and heart health, so you may be doing yourself some good beyond just keeping your teeth.
ReplyDeleteDid they include using it as thread for belly dancer bead fringe? (I used to make theatrical costumes back in the day and this was one of the tricks we learned to keep beads on the fringes.)
ReplyDeleteI use dental floss to halve hard-boiled eggs when I make deviled eggs.
ReplyDeleteYet again, Edie saves you from yourself. Lucky man, right?
ReplyDeleteYours is the first instance I've every heard of someone getting to the end of a floss roll. We've got a drawer full, and the old grungy ones get tossed long before the contents are exhausted.
ReplyDeleteThe choice of the word "uses" on the packaging is awkward, IMO.
ReplyDeleteI had a conversation with my dentist and dental hygienist about alternate uses for dental floss a couple years back, so I dutifully followed the storyline of this column all the way to the punch line. I may have been wise to the Dante column, but I was fooled by this one.
I am better about flossing in my senior years, but don't regard it as an age thing as much as an improvement in dental floss quality. In any case, I was offered a "swag bag" following my dental cleaning, and the hygienist said, "but you probably don't want the dental floss because its not the kind you like". And I said, "Oh! Keep it in the bag, I have a use for it". And she replied, "patients are always telling me the different ways they use this dental floss", which is how our conversation ensued.
I did have an actual doctor, albeit in my sister's kitchen, tie off a skin tag on my neck with great success! Should it come back I will not seek medical help!
ReplyDeleteComing in, belatedly, to say that this absolutely cracked me up. I was with you all the way until your wife set us both straight.
ReplyDeleteTHIS column was GOLD !! I gave to the husband to read just the first third of the column and look at the pic & tell me what he thought ... Yep - you two need to have coffee together at Dunkin... !!! LOL
ReplyDelete