My wife, Miranda Kopfschmertzen and I are both pretty good about not leaving the other for want of household supplies. Toilet paper rolls are rarely empty and you’ll never see a cardboard roll left on the paper towel dispenser.
However, for some reason over the years there has developed one exception to this. Though we’ve never spoken about it, I know we’ve both accepted this as a game in the house. The game is toothpaste chicken.
The object of the game is to NOT be the spouse to replace the toothpaste. Granted, being the good spouses we are there is always a replacement available, it would just admitting defeat by being the spouse to get the replacement and throwing the old tube out. The only rules are 1) no skipping your brushing duties (ew!) and 2) you have to always use the regular daily amount of toothpaste (no getting a just a hint of toothpaste and calling it a successful brushing event – just as ew!).
Last week, we had a particularly rousing bout of toothpaste chicken going on. We were both pulling all the stops trying to milk every last bit of precious paste from the tube – rolling up the end, flatting out the tube and running over the edge of the sink, harvesting the paste that has collected in the cap, screwing the cap off and coaxing the paste out like a ketchup (catsup) bottle, yelling at the tube, squeezing paste out with your mind…
