Then there was Michelle. Michelle was a domineering hussy in search of a trophy husband. The entire summer of our relationship, she dragged me from one party to another, showing me off to her relatives, her snooty college friends, and her co-workers. Looking back, I'm surprised our relationship lasted as long as it did.
When she brought over her toothbrush for the first time, it was the last straw. My signature navy blue Oral-B hung by its neck from the metal hoop of my toothbrush holder, while Michelle's red Reach Plus towered over my toothbrush by a good two inches.
Although Michelle was too daft to see the symbolism of it, the fact that her toothbrush stood taller than mine paralleled the power dynamic of our relationship too neatly. Her toothbrush was glowering over mine, bullying it almost.
This burned me. It was bad enough that she was governing my every waking hour. I shouldn't have to be reminded of it every time I walked into my bathroom.
So late one Sunday night, after a particularly dreadful cocktail party at her Uncle Sal's yacht club, I went home alone, crept into the bathroom with a pair of snub-nosed pliers, and did something violent.
I attacked that toothbrush holder with wild abandon, twisting and bending the metal hoop to make her toothbrush sit level with my own. Lower even!
By the time I was finished, the toothbrush holder looked a piece of shrapnel. It was no longer fit to hold even one toothbrush, let alone two. This of course, was assuming it would remain mounted to the wall anymore, which after a few minutes, it didn't.
Michelle was coming over later that evening. There was no way to cover up what I'd done. I called her and told her that tonight was probably a bad night, and maybe she shouldn't come over. In fact, perhaps she shouldn't come over to my house ever again for the rest of her life.
While she screamed obscenities, I put down the phone, went to the bathroom, swept the remains of her toothbrush and my toothbrush holder into the trash, walked to the kitchen, poured myself a beer, returned to my room, switched on the television, and still managed to pick up the phone in time to hang up on her.
To this day, I have not replaced the toothbrush holder in my bathroom. So long as I'm single, I never will. These days, if the girl I'm dating wants to keep her toothbrush at my place, she can keep it the medicine cabinet like a normal guest.
