A Swish in Time

I am usually out on the road for work, but occasionally I have to venture back to the office and check in to see what's going on and let them know their money is going to a living entity. For those of you who travel a lot, you know the sleep hours get wonky, the diet gets destroyed and coffee becomes your best tool to repair the day. Aside from all the other hazardous side effects of this behavior, the breath seems to suffer the most. I mean, I can strip the paint off a new car with my breath at some points of the day. The last thing I need to do after being on the road for eleven days, is appear at the office and level the entire staff with one hearty, "Heeeeeellllllllooooooooooooooooo!!!!". So I've learned to have stashes of mouthwash everywhere. Today's stash point is the glove box. I always travel with my mouthwash. So last week I came back from a mild trip. It was early evening and I was thrashed. I took a swig of my Crest Pro-Health Advanced Mouthwash, swished for a minute, and into the bush it flew. I confidently walked into the office and gave my trademark hello. I then had a meeting with seven of my colleagues minutes later. After my wordy presentation, I was asked by the big boss, who used to do what I did, how my breath was not toxic (he still suffers from rancid breath). I thought, "really, this is what he asks me after I gave the presentation of the millennium!" Ugh. Well then it dawned on me, this stuff must be working. So I filled him in as the rest listened. I told him that I often do Bzz campaigns with BzzAgent.com(that was another 5 minute detour). I explained that currently I was reviewing Crest Pro-Health Advanced Mouthwash which I had received for free, and was just now reaping the results. I told them that not only does is freshen breath by destroying germs, it is supposed to prevent cavities and help strengthen your teeth and gums. I have no proof of the latter personally, yet, but my dentist will sort that out. I brought the bottle in to let them all pass it around and sniff and shake and read the contents. I then orchestrated a group swishing. I passed out little dixie cups and dosed them all. We watched the second hand swing around to 12 and we all threw back and commenced swishing. It was a very odd scene. There were many different swish techniques. There was the rapid rabbit swish. The chimpanzee upper lip swish. The chipmunk full cheek swish. And my favorite, the Newton's Cradle cheek-to-cheek swish. A few passers by had to double take and lean into the room to see what was happening. A few of us almost spit the purple fluid across the room as bouts of silly laughter bubbled up. As the second hand swung back around to 12, we spit back into our cups and burst out laughing. As the laughter died down the chatter was insane. There was one person who was fighting the after taste. She had just had a lemon cough drop before the meeting and apparently lemon does not go with purple. You have been warned. I directed them to the coupons.com web link where they could all print a generous coupon for themselves and retrieved the remains of my bottle. Placing it in my file drawer, I invited everyone to use it as necessary. To my chagrin, two days later, both the men's and women's employee bathrooms had a bottle on the sink.