things i learned today after spending an hour with michelle, my substitute dental hygienist:

• I'm not brushing my teeth enthusiastically enough.
• I don't floss, and it's not clear who I'm trying to fool.
  
• Mauve is not my best color.
• It's a very good thing I'm not pregnant, because a) it allowed Michelle to take x-rays of my teeth - a task which she finds immensely soothing and I don't want to see her when she's unsoothed, and b) my unborn children will only disappoint me while draining me financially dry.
• If you want your children to behave for their teachers, train them early. Michelle suggests pointing out homeless people on the street and warning your kids from as early as infancy that if they disobey in school they will end up just like that.
• Good sons don't drop out of perfectly good chemical engineering programs to switch their majors to only God knows what.
  
• In the old country, children are a reflection on their families. This is why Michelle thinks we should be able to declare our children "orphans" should they begin to reflect too poorly.
• Michelle no longer has a son. She now has a twenty-year-old orphan who spends all his college money on booze and video games rather than perfectly good chemical engineering programs.
  
• In a divorce, your friends will choose sides.
• After her divorce, no one chose hers. (Although I can't imagine why....)
  
• It's somehow possible to get more enamel polish in my hair than on my teeth.
• With enough pressurized water concentrated long and hard enough in one spot of my mouth it is, in fact, possible to draw blood.
• I will never, ever miss another appointment with my regular dental hygienist.