It still feels pretty weird typing “/22” into the date space. And I know you think I’m talking about our Then and Now series when I put those words in the headline. But you probably know better, because you likely have read the comics before you get to the blog, and only one of the comics is a “Then and Now .” At any rate, I couldn’t think of a connection between electric toothbrushes and college (trust me, when I went to college they didn’t have Oral B electric tootbrushes with L.E.D. screens on them), so I went with the old standard, On. As in “On college days and electric toothbrushes.”

So let’s start with something I CAN remember. My new toothbrush. I was complaining to John about this new wonder brush recommended by both my dentist and periodontist (don’t ask what a periodontist is because I still don’t know. I just know that it’s expensive and hurts a lot). So this toothbrush encourages you to brush for 2 minutes. That’s a lot longer than it sounds. And if you’re in a rush, like during the mornings, you sometimes cut it a little short. Okay, a lot short. But after I have covered all the teeth, front and back, upper and lower, and am racing out of the house to catch a train, go a gym class or drive to some appointment or other, I look at the screen and see either a complete frown (if I’ve only brushed for say 45 seconds) or a half frown (only the left side is downturned) if I’ve made it to 1:37. I tried to compensate by refusing to look at the small screen on the brush, but it bothered me. In fact it bothered me enough so that I took a picture of the various faces (up to and including the full smile, which I achieve every single night) and sent them to John and said, I think we’ve got a comic here. As soon as I explained the dilemma to him, he countered, “Why don’t you just brush the complete two minutes?” And we had our comic, complete with punch line. I still maintain 2 minutes is a long time.

The inspiration for our other comic came from a crappy winter Monday. Temperatures in the low teens with a howling wind. I was supposed to meet a college buddy, also recently retired, for lunch and a hike…but there were prevailing circumstances: a) it was too cold to hike and b) due to the Omicron variant, we didn’t feel comfortable eating inside a restaurant and c) one restaurant did offer heated outdoor seating but (refer to circumstance a) it was too damn cold outside. So I went to my friend’s house, and he ordered take out and we ate it in his kitchen. Then we hung out and talked. We talked about now, we reminisced about the past and we may or may not have shared a drink and a couple hits of a joint (I’ll never tell). And I laughed because it occurred to me that this could have been 50 years ago on a winter Monday afternoon back in college and we would’ve been doing the exact same thing. I brought this scenario up to John and we molded it into one of our “Now and Then” series. He, as he usually does, steered us away from a more obvious ending to one that basically let the picture do the talking. As the song says: “that’s what friends are for…”

Have a great weekend and we will see you next week with our two latest.

Andy and John