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dildonics in toothbrush handle design
Friday, December 1 2006
In the upstairs bathroom we have kept out toothbrushes in a narrow glass vase. The problem with storing toothbrushes this way is that water trapped in the brush head gradually runs down the handle and accumulates in the bottom of the vase. And despite the fact that a toothbrush always seems clean when you put it back, the freshly-used brush head usually contains some saliva and perhaps even food particles. Let me tell you, nobody wants to deal with the long-term consequence of particles and old saliva accumulating in the bottom of a vase and fermenting. This smell finds its way onto the handles of the toothbrushes, providing a daily reminder of the imperfect toothbrush housing solution.
In the old days bathrooms were built with a solution to this problem. It came in the form of a cup holder mounted to the wall above the sink. Around this cup holder would be a series of rectangular holes into which toothbrush handles could be inserted after use. I remember the toothbrush holder of my childhood and how deposits of baking soda (which we used for toothpaste) would accumulate around those holes.
But these days all those toothbrush holders have been rendered obsolete by changes in toothbrush handle design. Perhaps following the dildo-for-the-person-who-can't-bring-himself-to-buy-a-dildo æsthetic followed by modern safety razors, the handles have ballooned into thick forms with "ergonomic" rubber treading and what not. The handles of modern toothbrushes are now much larger than their brush heads, meaning that to build a rack to hold them one can no longer use a framework of drilled holes. One must instead use a design similar to the way taverns rack their wine glasses.
I'd tried to build such a rack a week or so ago using a brass pipe as a base and brazing rods as prongs to hold the toothbrush heads. But it's very hard to accurately drill into a small metal pipe even using a drill press, so that first version didn't emerge from my laboratory. Today I built one using bits of brazing rod stuck into a thick slab of steel. The only problem was that it was a kind of steel that proved resistant to soldering. Later I lightly electroplated the rack with zinc.
Again Gretchen spent the day with a bunch of Catskill Animal Sanctuary types up in Schoharie County (which she pronounces as "Scary County") attending that animal cruelty trial of a horse hoarder who managed to starve at least 20 of her horses nearly to death two years ago (not one year ago as previously reported). According to Gretchen, the ineffectual district attorney redeemed his useless ass in his closing arguments, but it was to no avail. We learned later tonight that the toothless, overweight "jury of her peers" found her not-guilty. This threw Gretchen into a serious funk, to the point where she couldn't muster the motivation to even write a press release, one that would surely scare up scads more sanctuary memberships. There's nothing New Yorkers love to read in their newspapers more than how inbred and ignernt the denizens of their Upstate can be.
Rubber duckies in the upstairs bathroom.
The new toothbrush rack.
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