THE DENTAL FLOSS SAMPLE MY BUS DRIVER GAVE ME
★★★★★ (1 out of 5)
Hello, and welcome to my week-by-week review of everything in the world. Today I am reviewing the dental floss sample my bus driver gave me.
Chick has been my bus driver for over 30 years, driving the same route the entire time, and doing it with a smile – a smile so beautiful I’ve tried (and failed) to touch it on multiple occasions. Once I offered to wipe away a non-existent crumb just before Chick drove into a hill. Another time I offered to apply some ChapStick, but was interrupted by a collision with a small crowd.
At 96, I assumed Chick’s smile must be dentures until he told me the secret: his floss! A black market prescription dental floss from Mexico.
I lamented that I had recently been to Mexico and had I known to pick some up, it would have been a much better trip. “Not to worry,” Chick said, “you can get it at the dollar store, too.” As a smile grew on my face Chick looked away – proof that I needed some of his floss. As if reading my mind, he reached both hands into a brown paper bag underneath his seat and pulled out a large spool of floss. He looked at me, flashed his smile, slammed on the brakes and opened the door. We both knew what I had to do.
I ran. I ran to the nearest mirror (on the side of a parked van) and began flossing. The instructions on the package were in Spanish, but this didn’t deter me. I’d flossed before. I began threading the thick thread between my teeth as particles of unidentifiable foods began freeing themselves! At first I felt fresh and invigorated but soon was overcome with tunnel vision, followed by blindness, and then unconsciousness.
When I awoke, my mouth was dry and hurt to think about. I was dizzy and my fingernails were bleeding. I made my way home, staggering through traffic and swimming across a pond. I felt stupid for using a prescription floss not prescribed for me, but when I researched the ¡Volando Divertido! dental floss, I made a horrifying discovery. It wasn’t floss at all, but a chemical-coated kite string known to be toxic and discontinued decades ago.
That explained why the sample floss was 150 feet long and on a yellow plastic spool. And why it sported a cartoon of a child flying a kite. Once again, I had ignored all the signs and put something in my body that wasn’t meant to go there.
If one use of this “floss” had harmed me so badly, what might years of use do to Chick? I had to warn him. I raced to the bus stop and waited a couple of hours (it was Sunday) for Chick and his big bright smile to round the corner. When he appeared I breathed a sigh of relief, followed by a sigh of panic. Chick was smiling, but not blinking. And the passengers all shared the same terrified expression. I could hear a faint, unison scream. The bus continued on its path, straight into a wall.
Authorities claimed Chick died of old age, but I begged for an autopsy. I even threatened to do one myself, and when his family said I was welcome to, I had to admit the idea grossed me out too much. So I was never able to prove Chick’s demise was the result of the most dangerous (and incredibly effective) kite string/dental floss ever.
Please join me next week when I’ll be reviewing Señor Heureux’s Family Dentistry.
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P.S. I’ll be appearing at the May Monthly Rumpus event. I’m nervous no one will show up, so please come and support me. I’ll be reading from the novel I’m working on. It’s a sci-fi story about a dragon and his time machine. Hope to see you there!
