generica

I rarely buy national brand products at the store. I'm happy with my Top Care Ibuprofen and my K-Mart brand shoes. Not only am I a cheapskate, but i've actually developed a taste for the cheap. I don't just eat Piggly Wiggly cottage cheese, I actually Prefer it to the Breakstone's variety. Publix-brand tonic water tastes better because its two dollars cheaper than Schweppes or Canada Dry. Food Lion tater tots fry up just as greasy as Ore Ida's, and i don't care what you say, Bi-Lo cotton swabs are just as q-tippy as Q-tips.

That said.

About a month ago I splurged. I had an "impulse buy" which is to say I'd wanted it for a while, told myself i didn't need it, but bought it when my conscience wasn't looking. Its silly. Its overpriced. Its advertised.

Its lemon-flavored toothpaste.

Everyone I've mentioned this to so far has given me a look of utter repulsion. Lemon? Toothpaste? Why that's just...wrong. My own mother even gave me the Look--that mom-look of simultaneous distaste and disappointment--when she saw it on my countertop. But Crest must have heard there was a market for it, because they produced it and even had the gall to make a TV advert about it. It had something to do with it being refreshing like lemonade.

It is not refreshing like lemonade.

It is, however, very nice toothpaste. It tastes half minty half lemony and is yellow with sparkles. It looks, in essence, like something a four-year old would put on her purple light-up Barney toothbrush.

I don't understand folks's automatic dislike for the idea of lemon toothpaste. I love Lemon-flavored gum (though I have only found it in France--anyone care to mail me a packet of Hollywood Citron?) and nobody seems to mind lemon-scented dish detergent. They make lemon Skittles, candied lemon wedges, lemon Jolly Ranchers, and if you're lucky you might even find an actual lemon on the rim of your glass. People Like lemons. much more than most folks seem to like South Carolina, in any case. Just not my yellow toothpaste.

I'll stand up for you, lemon-flavored toothpaste. Its you and me against the world.