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Bad Floss

When the Mild Fiancée and I moved in together, we started buying groceries together. Sure, that sounds like an obvious statement, but it has led to some very interesting consequences. To quote one of my all-time favorite stories ("The Quiet Man" by Maurice Walsh), that one small statement "holds the risk of tragedy, the chance of happiness, the probability of endurance - choices wide as the world."

One of the interesting parts of this was figuring out where we found value. For example, did we want the name-brand mouth wash or was a generic version of this okay? Did we want to opt in to a community supported agriculture (CSA) outfit or did we want to buy our own groceries week to week? For that matter, where did we want to buy said groceries? Did Safeway have a better deal on chicken or did Costco? Decisions, decisions.

We did eventually start to make decisions and settle into a pattern, so things started to make sense. However, that's not to say that we didn't make some regrettable purchases. Of course, this wasn't a matter of not doing our homework; we just had to learn the hard way about some of these purchases. Luckily for us, most of these purchases were of perishable goods. If we screwed up, we ate it or consumed it, and then replaced it shortly thereafter.

There was, however, one item where this did not hold true: floss. We picked up a cheap dental floss box once, thinking that there really wasn't much difference between the "good" floss and the "bad" floss. I mean, the stuff just needs to get stuff out of your teeth. It's glorified string, for crying out loud. How much price differentiation could there really be?

As it turns out, enough. This particular floss had a weird property where it would cling very well to your fingers, but it would have difficulty getting between your teeth on occasion. Without realizing it, we would have to yank hard in order to actually floss our teeth. I know this to be true because I managed to cut myself using that floss once. I didn't even notice it until a few minutes later, when I looked down at my hands and noticed slight lacerations (very similar to paper cuts). Even then, it took me a little while to connect the dots. It wasn't until the next day that I realized that those "paper cuts" were the result of using this floss.

Of course, at that point, both the Mild Fiancée and I were kind of scared to use the floss. However, we still had a lot of it. As much as I was wary of said item, I didn't want to waste money. So, I soldiered on. The Mild Fiancée, on the other hand, was smart about it and cut her losses. She immediately switched out to a different brand of floss. She even tried to get me to switch the good floss, but I insisted on finishing the bad one. I didn't even want to give it to guests, for fear that they'd cut themselves.

Luckily for me, I learned how to use the floss a little more gingerly, so I didn't cut myself any more after that. Still, I had to work around the item rather than having it work with me. Even so, that floss lasted freaking forever. I don't remember how long it actually took, but it felt like it lasted for months. I'm dead certain that it took several weeks, at the very least. The ONE time that I wanted something to run out, it kept going like the little engine that could. Every single time I used the bad floss, I'd check to see how much was left. And every single time, there was a lot left. Somehow, we had purchased the zombie floss that refused to die.

Of course, there was a finite supply of said bad floss. And mercifully, I finally finished a short time ago. I darn near did a happy dance when I pulled on the floss and no more came out. It was that much of a relief.

Be picky about your purchases, boys and girls. You don't want to end up with a magical square of bad floss that somehow goes on forever.

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