Disaster

I recently became acquainted with an avid promoter of Procter and Gamble products. My financial inhibitions keep me from following all of her advice, but when I was perusing the consumer products section of my local Star Market, I noticed that large bottles of Crest Pro Health Plus mouthwash were on sale for 50% off.

So I picked a bottle up with my purchases.

After arriving home following shopping adventures, I decided to try out my newest adoption from the Procter and Gamble family.

I took a little swig, and did a little swish.

When I was a little kid, I was taught to gargle mouthwash to cleanse the back of the mouth.

So I tried a little gargle.

Unfortunately, I was putting the rest of my groceries away in the kitchen, and was caught off guard when my gargling caused a massive bubbly explosion in my mouth. As I ran to the sink, the frothy fluid cascaded down my face, onto my shirt. Embarrassed, I tried to clean up the excess mouthwash before I headed down to a car of friends.

When I got to the car, one of my friends remarked that I smelled really fresh.

"Like mouthwash?"

"Yeah."

Although I have mixed feelings about the gargleability of Crest Pro Health Plus, at least it smells minty fresh. Either in your mouth, or on you shirt.

And I was lucky. The large bottles for 50% off held enough mouthwash to thoroughly wash every mouth of a 10-mouth family twice a day for at least 10 years... I wasn't in danger of running out of minty fresh odor anytime soon.

A visit to Santarpios removed any minty fresh residue from my mouth, but filled my tummy with amazing pizza and home-made sausage. It was amazing.

After Pizza, we drove out to Walden Pond for a night swim.

I think in the last couple of weeks, I have received at least ten invitations from my Mormon friends to go swimming. I began to think that it was an activity that especially loved by Mormons. And it made sense.. While others may find temporary relief from the humid Boston Summer with a quick drink, Mormons are forced to be more creative. So we do stuff like.. go swimming in Walden Pond.

I think some of my favorite memories this summer have been floating on my back in the middle of Walden Pond, watching falling stars in complete silence. The woods are thick and wrap all the way around the pond, shielding the water from any artificial light source except for the hourly commuter rail train which quickly passes by on the opposite shore. As it rushes along through the trees, the lighted windows look like the Polar Express train. The water is the perfect temperature, and the night air is warm. It is a great place to float and think.

Mormons like that kind of stuff.

Walden Pond is mostly empty at night. However, during our swim that night, a small party of night swimmers passed by on the shore, presumably making their way back to their car.

On the car trip over, I had shared my suspicion that night swimming at Walden was a uniquely Mormon activity.

So as the nightswimmers passed, one of our group called out,

"Hey, are you guys Mormon?"

"Uh... no. Are you guys?"

It would have been the perfect missionary opportunity, but we were all laughing too hard to respond with any degree of spirituality. It was a potentially embarrassing encounter, but the darkness that separated us hid our identities. We could only hope that they would be encouraged to go home and look up more about the church.

Eventually, the night swimming came to an end.

We swam back to shore.

The midnight air was refreshing.

I put on my shirt.

I still smelled like mint.