the tale of two tubes of toothpaste

Trying saying that two times fast.

The story begins with a trip to the grocery store. It was about a month ago and I was armed with a list of things for the household. My trips to the store are both good and bad. Good because I stick to the list thus being both efficient and thrifty. Bad because I'm inexperienced with some items and don't always select correctly from the plethora of choices.

On this particular trip, you guessed it, toothpaste was on the list. For me, toothpaste is toothpaste. Stick with our regular brand, add a little whitening and all is good, right? Not so much. Toothpaste must be Crest with whitening AND with Scope. I wasn't up for a return trip so Sarah made an extra stop on the way home the next day for the improved tube of toothpaste.

Now for the good stuff. Within every problem lies a little opportunity, correct? You see, Sarah (in my opinion) is a bit excessive with the use of toothpaste. Those of you having family members with a similar problem know exactly what I'm talking about. Little tiny bits of toothpaste left in the sink after the brush, some extra "foam" on the bath towel after wiping their mouth.... you get the idea. I don't know how we live with it!!!

So for the last month I've been using my toothpaste while Sarah has been using her tube.

The tube on the left, over 1/3 empty, is Sarah's 2nd Tube! The tube on the right without Scope is mine. As visually impacting as this is, Sarah couldn't have cared less. I urged that a reduction in toothpaste use could save us 2 maybe 3 tubes of toothpaste each year... Dozens of tubes over our lifetime. Some laughter, but still nothing from Sarah. I considered going with "kids in Africa would love to have your extra toothpaste" but decided against it. I chalked my efforts up with a loss and blogged on.

Brett Smith, trying to change the world 1 tube of toothpaste at a time.