I didn’t know I was a contrarian until I bought that mouth guard set.
I had noticed in the last few months that my teeth were tired every morning. I had never been a teeth grinder before, so I resisted the idea for a while.
But I finally buckled and ordered in a mouthpiece kit. It came with four gummy pieces that looked like what the dentist used to fill with some goopy paste and then stick in your mouth to get an impression of your teeth. The goop tasted okay but sometimes persisted.
So that, maybe you went out to eat after the dentist appointment and discovered, after smiling brightly at the waiter, that paste crumbs were hanging from your lips like miniature stalactites. Theoretically.
Well, this kit didn’t have any goopy paste.
No goopy paste but stern instructions, though, for molding the mouthpiece.
So, I quote:
Immerse mouth guard in hot water 175 to 180 degrees.
Where was my candy thermometer again?
Oh, yeah, my daughter had borrowed the thermometer. So I would not know exactly what the water was.
I guessed. I still wasn’t in contrarian stage. Just practical, although that might be the precursor to contrarian. Still puzzling that idea.
Next instruction: Soak for ten to fifteen seconds. Must be less than twenty seconds.
Wait, what?
Must be less than twenty seconds?
I’m pretty sure this is when the contrarian started to lift its head. Just what would happen if I left the mouth guard in the water for, say, twenty-one seconds?
Maybe at twenty-three seconds, the mouth guard turned into a gelatinous mass like a jellyfish floating in the water. Or like a glass octopus. Or a transparent sea cucumber. (Who came up with that creative name? Probably the same scientist who named his dog Dog.)
So theoretically, there was a jellyfish floating in the water after my temperature guess.
Since there were four mouth pieces in the kit, I wondered if they assumed somebody might test their instructions?
After the fifteen seconds heating-up period comes the next order. I mean, instruction.
Use a wooden spoon and wooden chopsticks to fish the mouthpiece out of the hot water.
I double checked.
Yep, it said AND. And wooden chopsticks.
I don’t have any wooden chopsticks. Whelp, time to just figure it out myself. I used a wooden spoon and then plopped the piece on a dish towel. I didn’t need another jellyfish if this mouthpiece was allergic to metal spoons.
Oops. I didn’t read ahead. I was supposed to lower the mouth guard onto a paper.
A paper.
Sure.
This was getting dumb.
Then the instructions said to let the mouth guard cool for three to five seconds.
I didn’t know I’d need a stopwatch when I started this process.
Well, I lowered nothing onto a paper.
I plopped the piece onto the dish towel and then shoved it over my teeth. I had watched the dentist do that, so I knew how.
I bit down into something slightly firmer than Jello at a church potluck.
By now, I was in full rebel mode.
Fifteen seconds here. A paper there. And then the last instruction.
Leave the piece in mouth for exactly ten seconds.
Uh-huh. Exactly ten seconds. I’d have chastised the instructions, except it was hard to talk with that piece of old Jello in my mouth.
Just to show them, I pulled the mouth guard out when I felt like it. I wasn’t timing that.
Good grief. I can count one-Mississippi as well as anybody, but there was a principle here. The principle of “don’t be ridiculous.”
Then….
No more instructions.
What do I do next?
Well, at that point, I did what any contrarian would do. I figured it out. Included in the kit was a little blue plastic case for the mouthpiece so it’s resting there until it cools into something stiffer than melted gelatin.
But now that I know I am a rule breaker, I suppose I’ll find out at bedtime if I will even use this gummy thing.
I’ll let you know later. Or maybe I won’t.
This contrarian stuff is pretty fun.
