Even pearls are dark

Because my company is in the advertising business, we tend to come by lots of new products as samples, for video shoots, and the like. Periodically, when the store room is full, there will be a frenzied give-away free-for-all which has provided me with everything from cookie dough to Rolaids chews, Strawberry Mini Wheats to toothbrushes, detergent to battery-operated razors. I haven't had to buy shampoo in years. Not all the products are so great, but I try not to look a gift horse in the mouth, as it were.

I mention this merely because, a year or two ago, I tried bleaching my teeth with one of the new teeth-whitening strips of the variety you're supposed to slap on and wear for a while each day. I honestly haven't given any real thought to bleaching my teeth before, but ended up with this product because it was free. Sort of like how I ended up with the car wax, even though I don't have an automobile. Anyway, it was a short-lived bleaching attempt because I was unable to keep the damn thing on my teeth for more than ten minutes before the mind-numbing pain shooting through my teeth and resonating in my skull became too much to bear. Not exactly root-canal exposed-nerve sort of pain, but more hot/cold-sensitivity teeth-about-to-shatter pain. Clearly the peroxide bleach thing is not for me.

It occurred to me today, however, as I was washing down my beet salad with some pomegranate-blueberry juice, that perhaps it's time to revisit this and look into the whole laser/light variety of whitening procedures...