It occurred to me recently that flossing is obnoxious. It’s healthy. It feels great. It’s a lot easier to do than the narrative dictates. See? Already getting obnoxious about it.
I say this as a flosser, but we really don’t hate on flossers enough. Vegans? We make fun of vegans with vigor. But flossers? We let them slide.
Maybe this is flossers’ fault. Maybe we, those with clean gumlines, aren’t telling people enough about how great it is to floss. Maybe we need to be pulling people aside on the street, handing them floss, and not saying a word but offering a slight smile and raised eyebrows until one inevitably punches us in the face.
But maybe, too, it’s just the nature of the task. You’re vegan in public. You’re a flosser in private. And maybe really what’s happening is that more of us are flossers than care to admit. Maybe society has done this implicitly already, and we’re just keeping quiet.
The bottom line is this: If you put string between your teeth every day in the name of better oral (and perhaps cardiac) health, you’re a loser. And yes, that goes for me, too.
