the great toothpaste taste test of 1999 ...

almost 10 years ago, when fannie mcfanster and i lived together in this very small two-bedroom apartment where our neighbors hated us for having the audacity to throw a toga party in addition to finding other reasons to have a keg floating in a garbage can in our very small living room.

we ran out of toothpaste one night.
it was my turn to buy it.
i was the bad roommate. the one who didn't clean the litter box and paid my portion of the rent in nickles and let toonses make a happy meal out of the cord for her new mac and stole her favorite jeans.
her worst quality was manic cleaning when she was hung over, which really isn't such a bad thing if you can live with a vaccum cleaner running at 7 a.m. after a night of drowning the agony of being a secretary at a nonprofit agency that expected you to roll into work before 10 a.m.

so we had a few drinks at the smiling moose and made our way to hi-vee after last call. she was colgate or something; i was crest. or maybe it was vice versa. whatever. we decided to have a taste test. we opened a few tubes of lesser known brands and squirted a bit onto our fingers and decided whether or not we could live with bubble gum or cotton candy flavored toothpaste.

then we saw the brand close up, which inspired all sorts of nostalgia for the 80s. we tasted it. YUM! so i bought it.

the next morning, fannie left me a note that said:
i noticed that close up does not have approval from the american dental association. please pick up some real toothpaste today. i'm not using a brand that doesn't have the seal of approval.

it was like the previous night's fun, frolick and taste testing had never happened. friggin' fannie.