Dorito Toothpaste

Anna was snuggling up to me on the couch and talking to me... She had just finished a bag of Doritos chips. She was taking my hair, dividing in into two sections, and wrapping the two ends of it criss-cross around my neck. She likes to do that and she always says, "You look pretty this way, Mama."

(I probably do look better with my hair wrapped around my neck: it obstructs the view of my chin(s). Maybe that will become a hair style in the future? Fingers crossed. Seems more likely than me actually losing weight and double chin(s) at this point.)

Anyways... she was right in my face,with an orange Doritos-dust beard and mustache, breathing nacho cheese fumes on me, and I said, "Oh, Anna, I think you need to go brush your teeth!"

She said, "I just brushed my teeth, Mama!"

I gave her a look that said, simply: Liar!

She said, "No really! I brushed my teeth. But instead of the bubble gum or the minty ones, I used a new kind! It's called Dorito toothpaste!"

I started to say, "Anna... "

She carried on, "They mash up little bits of Dorito chips in it, and when you put it on your toothbrush you can see them! It works really good!"

I think Anna is going to be the type of grownup that will be able to convince anyone of anything she wants. Hopefully she will use this power of persuasion for good instead of evil...

And if she can market such a thing as nacho-cheese flavored toothpaste, with gritty ground up chips for extra polishing capabilities, then she will be unstoppable.

PS: On the topic of Doritos.... Doritos go in my category of foods that we think taste good, but actually taste like butt. I really think that if we weren't introduced to certain foods as children, we would not become susceptible to the chemical flavors, and they would taste terrible to us. I remember one of our French exchange students (or rather, a girl named Estelle who came for a summer visit and commandeered my bedroom) would have some of the worst reactions to our American food. Like Taco Bell? That was completely horrifying to her. Refried beans out of a can, spread on flour tortillas, microwaved with a little cheddar on top made her want to puke (our homemade version of Taco Bell!) Taco Bell, or TB, as we fondly referred to it, was a staple in our family. So many fond memories of that place... getting about 20 tacos and going to the beach and eating them, hearing the inevitable sand grit between my teeth (no matter how careful you are, if you eat at the beach, you are going to ingest a little sand); going through the drive thru every Sunday after church; heading out for late night TB runs, because sometimes you really need that extra 800 calories right before bed... I am sure if I had been sent to Paris at a similar age I would have had a hard time adjusting to their food culture. There are so many foods I had said my kids would never have: things like Doritos, hot dogs,corn dogs, McDonald's (Oh, come ON! Like that was ever going to work out!), soda, etc. But that would have meant that I would have had to stop eating them, I guess. And I love all of our nutritionally void, hyper-processed, chemically enhanced food. And my kids DO love all sorts of foods that are actually good for them.