The Contest

"I have an idea for a contest," he said to me last week, that true love of mine. He slithered into the bedroom looking nixy* and said one of those words that always make me explode: contest, competition, winner.

"What is this contest and how can I win?" I threw down my book, alert and ready to dominate.

"Let's try to make the other person not be able to get any toothpaste out of the tube." He lay next to me with his hands behind his head, dreaming up new squeeze strategies, envisioning ways to cheat. Corey's philosophy is always to say if you aren't cheating, you aren't trying.

"Oh yes. I will win this. We must play." I put my hands behind my head, envisioning the same cheats.

Now, oral hygiene is much more fun. I used to spring from bed and brush my teeth immediately, before cereal even. But Corey always waits until he is about to leave for work. So I try to make him brush first even if it means languishing in my own onion breath for close to two hours. When it finally is my turn, I squeeze that tube until my fingers ache, trying to find new corners of untapped paste. I unroll it and roll it up again, hoping for residue along the creases.

We use Tom's of Maine toothpaste, with the aluminum, recyclable tubes, so they aren't kind to the fingers like a Crest or an Aquafresh might be. This is serious. I might dig out some gloves to avoid the sharp edges. When I brushed my teeth today, I realized there was a store of toothpaste hiding in the lid that I dug out with my brush, fearing another shove at that tube. But mark my words! I will win this contest. I will outlast my husband and he will throw the empty tube to the floor in rage, shaking his fist toward the sky and reacting explosively at the lack of any possible paste remaining.

How do I know this? Because I am leaving tomorrow morning to go out of town and I get to take the travel-sized tube of Tom's for on the road.

*Nixy is a word my grandmother uses for when a child is being devilish. Like if someone sprays baby powder all over the room, she is being nixy.*