I just had a traumatizing experience. My electric toothbrush has been dying, won’t fully charge, makes sad ‘pffffffffffffft’ noise and stops moving when it touches my teeth. My Mom picked me up a new one from Costco. Very excited. Teeth have been feeling neglected. First thing I see, bluetooth symbol on the front of the toothbrush. $%&@! why do I need a toothbrush with a bluetooth connection. Will just never use it, whatever. So it’s like 2AM, I’m sliding around my vinyl bathroom floor in socks humming “New In Town”, I close my eyes to really get into the emotion of the song, hit the power button and

GRRRRAAAHHH
RED
GRAAAAAHHHH
RED
GRRRRAAAHHH
RED
GRAAAAAHHHH
RED
GRRRRAAAHHH
RED
GRAAAAAHHHH
RED

This thing has the power of a jackhammer and is twice as loud. It’s moving so rapidly and shaking so violently I cannot even feel if the bristles are touching my teeth, so instead it just keeps slipping to the side and the plastic brush head just rattles against my molars. It also has a strobing red light, not a small power indicator light, but a full on light strip like I’d imagine flashes in a submarine that is taking in water due to enemy fire or something. At brushing level, this is about 2″ from my closed eyelids which were expressively clenched as I focused all my energy on the chorus of a song about the power of a ladies night out.

It was like being in the accountant’s weird sensory overload room, or listening to KMFDM through a cinder block wall.

I’m keeping it because I feel like it is fighting me and I like a challenge.

EDIT: The light is part of some sort of pressure sensing mechanism. I can’t even be trusted to brush my own teeth anymore. And that LED bulb? That doesn’t look replaceable. Do I just toss the toothbrush when the bulb burns out, supposing this pressure sensing technology is worth it? That doesn’t seem green. The world is too complicated.