The electric toothbrush.

I bought an electric toothbrush today. I was on one of those shopping errands, where you go into a big store -- in this case, Target -- needing maybe one thing -- in this case, toothpaste -- but you start to ideate furiously from the moment you park the car about what other things you could possibly buy so it won't seem so foolish to go to all this trouble to buy just that one thing. Yeah, Halloween candy. I need a lot of that. But why not a nice electric toothbrush to go with that toothpaste. That's a satisfying combo. It even seems to relate to the candy. I find some other things and finally check out to the tune of $272. Good thing I made sense of that errand, because otherwise I might have just spent $3.

Anyway, I got to thinking about the last time I had an electric toothbrush. It was back in the 1960s, when the first electric toothbrush was introduced in the United States: the Broxodent! I had to Google to jog my memory about that brand name. (I found this article, which contains the info: "most Americans did not brush their teeth until Army soldiers brought their enforced habits of tooth brushing back home after World War II. " Oh my!)

I remember feeling incredibly lucky to have this new device, even though it was hard to control. It lacked an on-off switch, believe it or not. You had to squeeze the "brakes," two black pads on opposite sides of the handle. It was not easy for a kid to do.

Now that I think about it, I realize my parents were kind of into gadgets. They got central air conditioning before anyone else in the neighborhood. My father built electronic things from kits and built in various speakers around the house. He had a device for planting "plugs" of zoysia grass, which were supposed to spread into the most amazingly beautiful lawn, but never did. And he was quite fond of his "Contour Chair" (which seemed futuristic at the time, but now would be associated with blood donation, I think).

Where am I going with this post? Oh, I don't know. Just trying to accumulate more things at this point. Kind of like that shopping trip!