Time in a Tube

I finished a tube of toothpaste a couple of days ago.

This is not something I generally note, either here in particular or in my life in general. You’re supposed to do that now and then. For all that dental hygiene is a nuisance, it is also something that takes very little time and provides positive, identifiable benefits, so you grit your teeth (the better to brush them, perhaps) and get on with it.

This is especially true for me, as I inherited my dad’s soft teeth and I suspect that the only reason my rate of cavities has slowed in the last few decades is that there’s not much room left for them to form anymore. I need all the dental help I can get.

This particular tube, though, was something of a traveler.

Last year’s Big Family Trip took us through any number of places, and you can only pack so much if you’re planning to do it all by carryon as we did. I figured we’d be in places where there were shops so if I found myself needing something I hadn’t packed or if I ran out of something that I hadn’t packed enough of, I could – through the simple expedient of handing over currency, either physical or digital – acquire it there.

This is how I ended up with a small bottle of wood glue, purchased from the World’s Smallest Hardware Store in Irsina, Italy. It is very nice glue, and I highly recommend that shop for all your hardware needs should you ever be able to locate it. The guy there was very friendly and forgiving of my attempts to speak Italian.

I ran out of toothpaste while we were in Prague.

Fortunately there were, by my count, at least four little cornershops within five hundred meters of the apartment where we were staying, all of which sold the unheralded things that people need to get through the days. I wandered down to one of them and bought the smallest tube I could find (75ml), since I didn’t want to get stopped by airport security on the way back or abandon it in Prague unless I had to, and it worked just fine.

I put my travel stuff away when we got home and it stayed there until December when I realized that I now had access to more normal travel-sized tubes and could take this one out for regular use. I put it in a safe place.

Eventually I found it again, put it to use, and worked my way through it.

It was a nice memento of a time and place, in a practical sort of way, and a good reminder of all the unassuming little details that happen in places where you’re just visiting. People live there. They do all the daily in and out things that people do, and you’re just visiting but sometimes you end up doing those daily things too.

Every time I brushed my teeth these last few weeks I remembered a wet, grey city far from my home, a city I enjoyed with my family, where I found good people and good times, and that’s a nice thing to do twice a day.