Lips to Ips

After all the talk about storms and shit, how about something funny and silly and gross to lighten the mood?

A couple of weeks ago, I went over one night to the bathroom to brush my teeth. I open the light and go for my toothbrush, which was placed along with my Mom's sticking inside a cup on top of a raised platform area above the toilet. As I drew up my toothbrush, an IPIS or cockroach skittered out of the cup. I recoiled in horror and imagined that the thing may have been all over our dental care stuff, it's dirty antennae probing all over. I told my Mom about this and just resolved to buy another toothbrush.

A couple of days later, I entered the bathroom again to brush my teeth. I looked up and was about to grab my new toothbrush when- I once again recoiled in HORROR. A fricking Ipis was perched right on my toothbrush, on the bristles where you put toothpaste. The creepy little bugger was sitting pretty no doubt sucking in whatever he could from the brush. The raised position of the platform prevented me from squashing the blasted bug, but I shooed it away and then threw away the brush. This had to stop.

This was weird, of course. We were pretty tidy. The bathroom was a bathroom, but it was generally very clean. But for some reason the recent weeks saw roaches frequenting the area where we put our brushes. Perhaps it was a freak chance that I walked in and saw what I did. But now that I knew that roaches were among stuff we put in our mouths, I couldn't just stand and do nothing.
I bought a new brush with a brush head cover, and resolved to NOT put it in the cup any more. I set it aside farther away from the platform, where roaches seemed to have taken to haunting a lot.

A couple of days later, I came in to brush my teeth. I got my brush... and then ONCE MORE WITH FEELING, RECOILED IN HORROR as I saw a roach perched on the lid of the tube of toothpaste!

WHAT THE HELL?!! It was fascinating in a filthy, horrid way though, so instead of shooing the insect away, the first thing I did was grab my digicam and snap the disgusting sight (too bad I erased it, but darn it was gross) and then show my Mom just what I was talking about.

Well, since then we've taken to putting all our toothbrushes and toothpaste in personal containers (fashioned by my Dad from empty dish detergent containers) with lids to keep roaches out. My Mom has also killed a couple of roaches in the area, but we knew it was useless to kill 'em. There will always be roaches there, but at least now we've made sure we won't be french-kissing the buggers everytime we brush.

So... are your toothbrushes in a good, clean place?