Pearly whites

Yes Douglas, the teeth-whitening process is a real hoot. :-) I'll probably have to do it regularly until I'm a hundred because my love for coffee, Diet Dr. Pepper, and Coke Zero just isn't conducive to maintaining clean, bright teeth. Speaking of Coke Zero...have you tried it? It's amazing! How do they get it to be calorie free, yet so sweet and savory? No one is paying me to say that. I'm just a huge fan. Goes great with Peanut M&M's. Guess I lied about the ban on chocolate blogging.

I did teeth-whitening once when we first moved to Dallas, but that started with a one-hour trip to the dentist's office to have my teeth lasered and then they sent me home with gel and dental trays so I could continue to whiten at home. That worked okay, but it was pre-braces so instead of crooked teeth I just had crooked white teeth. So I got braces. I don't care what anyone says...you can't have glue on your teeth for a year and a half and end up with sparkely white teeth. So whitening became necessary again. Especially since I'm SO pale and white anyway. One can't have darker teeth than skin. It just looks funny.

One of Angela's colleagues hooked us both up with some new turbo-powered teeth-whitening gel that we only have to leave on for fifteen minutes a day. But this gel has nuclear capabilities I tell ya. It's so strong it hurts while you have it on. And there is one spot in my mouth where some of it always leaks out and lands on my gumline no matter how small the dot that I squirt into the tray, and it burns like crazy. And the whole process leads to sensitive teeth, so now hot and cold liquids and even taking a deep breath with my mouth half open zings me and I jump. This will probably happen on the air at some point and I'll stop in mid-sentence and it will sound like there's something wrong with your radio. I'll just blame it on that.

I'll pay this price for pretty teeth. I won't pay for manicures or pedicures because I don't care that much about my cuticles, but I'll suffer for a purdy smile. I'll imbibe the hot coffee and the cold Coke Zero no matter how bad it hurts. That's sacrifice.