TOOTHPASTE

In the twenties of the twenty-first century S________ produced so many different types of toothpaste that it was possible, even if you never used another brand of toothpaste, to never use the same product twice. Indeed, even if you found one that you particularly liked, it was hard to find it a second time as the packaging and price of the different types of toothpaste seemed to be in a constant state of flux. I often wondered about this, and the possible motives behind it, but I couldn't make any sense of it. It seemed to me a sort of toothpaste anarchism, but I could never work out how it benefitted anyone. I was reminded of this because I had stumbled upon a new variety that I really liked. Intrigued, I started reading the small print on the packaging. I discovered that S________ toothpaste was made in Slovakia, a country I knew nothing about. And I wondered if that was OK. Was it OK to know nothing about Slovakia? So I asked some students I was teaching if they knew anything about Slovakia. “Does anyone know anything about Slovakia?” I asked. Blank faces greeted my question. “OK,” I said. “I just thought I'd ask, on the off chance.” I told them that I wanted to know because I was going to write a story set in a toothpaste factory in Slovakia, even though this was not true and was not the reason that I was asking them, but the truth was that I just didn't want to get into all the toothpaste stuff with them. They probably already thought I was weird and I didn't want to add to that impression. And then I had a break and told some colleagues about how I had got addicted to Polos and my teeth had started cracking and bits breaking off; and about how I switched to the sugar-free variety and discovered that they had a sort of laxative effect if eaten in the quantities that I was accustomed to eating them in, which was OK for a while because I was generally quite a constipated person, but ultimately it was no good, and I'd had to give them up. And then I wondered what kind of story I could write about a Slovakian toothpaste factory. And I thought maybe I could write a story about a man who kept getting all the different types of toothpaste mixed up, and putting the wrong toothpastes into the wrong tubes, but the owners didn't mind because they were toothpaste anarchists and all they really cared about was creating toothpaste uncertainty, and toothpaste confusion, which they regarded, for some reason, as the best conditions for toothpaste sales. And all the while the man suffered terribly from toothache and missing teeth and bleeding gums. The story would be a sort of clunky metaphor for the capitalist system. Most stories were clunky metaphors for something or other, but this one would be clunkier than most. I would write it. There would be lots of jokes about the different varieties of toothpaste.