01 November 2011

Billy Bob Does Not Have Lips Like Sugar

I'm not the sweet type. Sugar, that is.

I have fairly simple tastes: Black coffee, plain cake, plain vanilla ice cream, unsweetened tea. Don't get me wrong, I can pound back a bag of Reese's peanut butter cups like the best of them. That's normal.

Not that I've ever tried.

Pfffttt.....

The irony of a Krispy Kreme cooking up gluten overload within five miles of my house is not lost on me. On the rare occasion I do eat there, and it is rare....I get the plain, non-glazed donuts. Mr Coffee, however, makes an effort to get diabetes in one meal. The man has been blessed with some inhumanly sick (or enviable) ability to devour half a dozen double-frosted, sugar-bomb, raspberry-filled, double-chocolate something-or-others and not slip into a sugar coma.

Mr Coffee inherited my portion of the sweet tooth. Which, fortunately for him, he also got my portion of keeping it off the scale. 

The hot, brilliant, gorgeous, sugar-eating jerk.

After consuming trace amounts of sugar, I feel like my vital organs are shutting down and Im hyper enough to vibrate bubbles out of a concrete foundation. All this aversion to sugary sweetness has turned me into one of those label readers. Sodium content, high fructose corn syrup, and how many servings they sneak into a pint of Haagen Dazs. It's criminal that you can devour 220% of your daily fat intake in one of those little Tardis like "four serving but are really one serving" pints.

Who in their lactose-fueled mind can stop half way through one of those? The Biggest Loser, we are not.

At a young age, and by young, I mean still in diapers, society is indoctrinating and molding us into becoming label readers. Doctors, media, parents, school, government-subsidized farmers monetarily motivated by the US Department of Agriculture. Who would have guessed the USDA paying off wheat farmers would encourage us to eat 6 to 9 servings of bread?!

If government tells us how to eat, it's only natural that movies and TV would follow. I remember those 1980s-era Skippy peanut butter commercials getting in on the action.

My 2nd grade sister holding up a jar of peanut butter at the grocery regurgitating through a toothy grin her best Annette Funicello imitation, "Buy this, Linda! It has good nutrition!" 

On top of this, with my label reading and natural sugar avoidance, could someone please, then, explain to me why, oh why, my teeth are falling out? Do your teeth just start to revolt once you turn 18? Once you start paying your own bills? Or do they wait until you start getting crows feet and a mustache just to mix things up? And it's not just us girls.

It wasn't until I was 24 and knocked up with my first child that I began to have teeth issues. Forget the other dangers of unprotected sex. They never mention a tooth revolt with pregnancy. Not once. Nor do they explain when you are 10 years old that avoiding proper hygiene is akin to ping hammering your teeth once you turn 25.

Brushing away a year of bad habits the night before a dentist checkup doesn't count.

Fast forward to adulthood and compulsive flossing. I have flossing picks everywhere. I'm the OCD of the dental world. Little hand flossers packed in my purse, in the van, in a bag in front of my computer. My compulsion has paid off and my hygienist loves me. However, I still need root canal, crown, have a cracked filling, blah, blah, blah... Don't even get me started on my front teeth repair. It's a long story involving roller skates, a blanket, and ramming my 7 year-old face into a steel pole.

I have my own little Toothbrushers now. I've taken it upon myself to sporadically inspire household hygiene with the Billy Bob teeth angle. I sputter out through fake plastic, black, misaligned teeth in my best redneckerson, "SMOOCH! Youse want some teeth like me?! Don'cha ever brush...hey, give yer mama some sugar."

Armed with good dose of fear, my kids have good hygiene habits for life. And if all goes as planned, I'll also have label readers that would make even Linda cry into her recommended servings of protein-filled peanut butter.

~Bee may or may not be approved by the American Dental Association

Listening to: Smile Like You Mean It by The Killers