A Divorce Letter To My Electric Toothbrush

Sometimes I’ll brush my teeth next to someone who’s using a manual toothbrush. I feel like some sort of brush-duration elitist. They glance at me, nervously continuing to brush, wishing they could just spit out their freaking toothpaste already! But “ah!” here stands this man who’s still patiently polishing the third quadrant of his mouth! “I shall wait for the permission of the most high electronic brush…” they seem to think. Most times, as a dutiful servant of habit, I will continue to brush until the battery powered bristles in my mouth tell me to stop. But my thoughts are not on my teeth. My thoughts are not even on the thoughts of the manual toothbrush user beside me their paste seems to be foaming much quicker than mine and I bet they’re thinking I have some kind of superiority complex. We continue to brush as their eyes dart at the sink. Why don’t they just spit if they want to spit? This is no sport of endurance! We’re simply brushing teeth. They hear my brush buzz and take a step to the sink, but retreat when they notice that I’m just now moving to the last fourth of my jaw. They roll their eyes… I roll mine. My teeth are no whiter than their’s. I’m divorcing my electric toothbrush.