Flossing may change your life

Why not give it a shot?

I listen to many podcasts, and a host of one that I’ve been listening to for about six years always says that if you want to change your life you should start flossing.

It’s not that flossing has some magical power. Flossing won’t change your life by itself, unless your life is being ruined by gingivitis. (Also, can I just tell you how long I’ve been waiting to work the word gingivitis into legitimate use in my writing? It’s a big day for me!)

But if you don’t floss, then beginning to floss is a change in your life. A significant change. It’s doing something good for yourself that you weren’t doing before. It’s not giving up meat, or excising sweets, or getting to the gym five days a week, but it’s a start. And as that old proverb goes: A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.

So the idea is that if you start to floss, that might just be enough change to make you want to make other changes. If you’re flossing, then maybe you’ll stop eating sweets, because what’s the point of not having gingivitis if your teeth are rotten from too much sugar? And if you stop eating sweets then you’re going to be hungry, so maybe you’ll start eating more veggies. And if you’re eating more veggies, then maybe you’ll have more energy, and you’ll start moving more.

See, it’s a slippery slope, but in a good way.

Or maybe you’ll want to show off your well-flossed teeth and you’ll go to the dentist, and the clean bill of health will inspire you to go to the doctor. Who wants to disappoint your doctor? Not me! So you might as well lose those twenty pounds before your next visit so the doctor can say, “You’re doing so well! Keep it up.”

All of that being said, I don’t floss regularly. I’ve got a bunch of gaps in my teeth, and I forget about those places where things are tight.

Unless some wicked food reminds me.

On the list of wicked foods, popcorn must be at the top.

I love popcorn. I’ll eat a bag of microwave popcorn anytime. And I’ve developed a technique to make delicious popcorn in the microwave with no oil or butter or anything. Just kernels. Stay tuned. Maybe I’ll write about it sometime. But there’s nothing more annoying than shoving a handful of popcorn into my face and then feeling the husk get stuck in my teeth. That seems like something that I should be able to prevent, but thus far, no luck.

So when I feel like eating popcorn, I have to also ask myself if I feel like flossing. Because if I don’t feel like flossing, then I better not eat any popcorn. I’m stuck calculating the results of this Popcorn Joy/Flossing Work algorithm every time I want some popcorn. More than half the time the work doesn’t seem worth it, so I skip the popcorn.

Apples are the next culprit. I’m sure there’s some point to the apple’s skin, but as far as I can tell the only reason that it exists is to get stuck in my teeth. Has anyone checked to see if there’s a relationship between the apple industry and the floss industry? Because apples are easily the most genetically manipulated fruit. Who’s to say that Big Floss didn’t get in with the apple industry and convince them to develop skins that have no choice but to become lodged in your teeth?

I’m not a conspiracy theory type guy, but it wouldn’t take much to convince me of that.

But even if Big Floss is manipulating us, I don’t care. I’m sold on the value of flossing. Although maybe I shouldn’t be. After all, this is the industry that invented the term halitosis just to sell more mouthwash. We’re all suckers for something though, aren’t we? And if we’re going to be suckers, then flossing isn’t the worst thing we could be suckers for.

And who’s pro-bad breath?

If I’ve convinced you to start flossing, thanks for listening to reason. And your teeth thank you, too. And the rest of your life, because things are about to change for you. For the better.

But one word of caution: buy floss, don’t buy flossers. I could write another whole post about my hatred for flossers. So much wasted plastic for an inch of floss. You’re a competent person. You can buy floss and figure out how it works. You don’t need a flosser.

However, you do need teeth. So get some floss.

And change your life.