On Household Items

Why is it so traumatic to get a new toothbrush? I have a few guesses, but none of them equals the amount of pain I have to go through every time it happens. Maybe it's that there are four billion different kinds of toothbrush to choose from, so I have to decide which one will Best Fit My Needs. Or maybe it's that new toothbrushes--even if I buy the exact same model (model?)--never feel like the old toothbrush. Or maybe it's that I'm pretty sure I don't change my toothbrush often enough, so when I do get a new one, I then imagine all the gross things that could be living in my old one.

Have you noticed that when you go stay with other people, the pillows they give you to sleep on often feel like bags of hayseed and smell like the 1800's? I mean, what's up with that? Since they invited you to stay with them, I'd assume these people LIKED you. Were they so surprised by your arrival that they had to dig out the pillow their great-great-grandmother used the night she died in her sleep? Why do they even HAVE those pillows? (Note: This paragraph is not in reference to anyone who has hosted me this summer nor their pillows.)

My mom got a new dishwashing brush recently. It's pretty sweet. It has a suction cup on the end, so you can stand it up and let it dry much more quickly than it would if it were left floating in a potful of dirty, bacteria-infested, rotten-food-funk-smelling water, as dishwashing brushes tend to do. The only problem is that when you stand it up, all the water runs back down the brush onto your hand, which makes you feel just like you do when you reach into a pot of dirty water and pull out the brush that's been soaking all night.