{{previous post in sequence}}

sigmaleph:

brin-bellway:

kitstacean:

spaceshipoftheseus:

akaanonymouth:

What is it about fics then, where characters always, ALWAYS, have a spare toothbrush conveniently just hanging about in bathroom cupboards for that time someone is, usually unexpectedly, staying the night?

I have lived a few decades now, and I have never known anyone who keeps spare toothbrushes. Is it really common??

if you are the kind of just-in-case clutter goblin who does not throw things away, and you live in a country where it is standard practice for the dentist to give you a free toothbrush every time you go, then it is extremely possibly to have several years-old unused “spare” toothbrushes of extremely cheap but basically functional quality stashed away in your bathroom whether or not you visit the dentist at the recommended frequency

Don’t people buy multipacks of toothbrushes? I use an electric now, but back in the day I got the ones from my dentist and also bought the 8 pack of toothbrushes then I’d forget about my spare 5 toothbrushes in my cupboard when I see the multipack on sale again and then – you get the idea.

There are people who don’t keep spare toothbrushes??

What if you fumble your toothbrush and it falls onto the toilet plunger, do you then just *not have* a toothbrush?

What if you go to the store–for any toothbrush-replacement reason, fumbling or otherwise–and they’re out of toothbrushes because it’s the 2020s and a store is always out of an absolute minimum of three things on your shopping list at any given time?

*please* let me give you a toothbrush from out of my gallon bag of spare toothbrushes, I am *begging* you, you do not have to live on a knife’s edge

i don’t think i’ve ever unexpectedly lost a toothbrush

but also i think you seem to consider ‘you don’t have a toothbrush’ as… more of an emergency than I do?

if i lose my toothbrush and don’t happen to have spares and it’s too late to go buy a new one what would happen is i would not brush my teeth that night or the following morning, and i’d buy one the next day. and this seems basically fine to me. obviously an inferior outcome to the one where i do brush my teeth, but not a serious problem.

Maybe it seems like more of a hassle if one normally goes shopping fortnightly. Almost any loss of sole toothbrush would require making some sort of special arrangement, going out of my way to do something or convince someone else to do it.

And even if it’s not a *serious* problem, it’s satisfying to be able to simply make a problem Not.

Relatedly, I consider household-inventory buffers to be a good idea by default: with how cheap and small and indefinitely-shelf-stable and inevitably-useful-sooner-or-later toothbrushes are, I would basically need a good reason to *not* have some spare toothbrushes. It’s all just part of keeping a household running smoothly, from my perspective. I store them next to the 20-pack of bar soap I bought at Costco.

Tags:

#reply via reblog #101 Uses for Infrastructureless Computers #domesticity #medical cw? #unsanitary cw?