On Vanity and Drastic Measures

My sister was whitening her teeth last month and her smile looks great.  "Have you been whitening your teeth?" I asked her, "Because your smile looks great."  I can't decide if this is a rude question to ask someone, probably not as long as you qualify your inquiry with a compliment, and probably no more rude than asking someone "have you been tanning?"  Both actions suggest a certain amount of vanity on the part of the respondent and a highly critical eye on the part of the inquirer, as though to say, however complimentary, "I noticed that your skin is not as pasty as usual and your teeth are no longer so yellow and stained."

 Probably, what was rude, was when someone asked my sister "have you been tanning?" and I eagerly replied for her "no she hasn't, but she has been whitening her teeth!  Her smile just makes her skin look more tan!"  This forced her to concede "No, not tanning, I have just been using that lotion with tanner in it."

Real nice Carrie.  What can I say? I was jealous.

I used to have nice white teeth.  One summer, when I was home from college, Richard and I invested in two boxes of Crest White Strips and after two weeks we were hooked.  Every summer after, we would make sure to whiten our teeth.  We figured, "If we have such big teeth, they better shine!"  

When I was pregnant, one of the grave admonitions from my mother (in addition to not sitting on public toilet seats or eating pineapples) was not to whiten my teeth.  "Your teeth look fine," she assured me, and so, with an ever yellowing smile, I ceased my teeth improvement project and settled for "fine."

I admire my sister's nice, clean looking smile and so, when I found an old White Strip while digging through a bag of bandages and cough drops, I eagerly ripped it open and stuck it to my teeth.  

"Do they look whiter?" I asked Josh that night.  "Much whiter," he replied without looking, "That one white strip has made a huge difference."  I sense your skepticism Joshua, but it will not stop me from pursuing this aesthetic.

At the store I was affronted with a variety of whitening choices: 3-D White, Dazzling White, Deluxe White, Glow In The Dark White, Blinding White, Bleeding Gums White.  Reading their descriptions, it would seem that the primary difference in all of these products is the amount of time it takes to acquire results and their price tags.  As it turns out, whitening your teeth can be a major commitment and, as a yellow toothed consumer, you pay dearly to minimize that commitment. Whitening strips should really have names like Last Minute White or Lazy White.

I settled for Cheap Skate White.  My face hasn't seen the sun in over a year and a half, so here's hoping that it will have the same effect as Make Me Look Tan White.  Smile!