On Tuesdays and Thursdays we would get to school early, file into the library, check-in with whatever teacher was at the desk, and then swish the light-blue watery liquid for 60 seconds (while a teacher timed you... generally it was a 6th grade teacher, so I wanted to impress her). And then spit it back into the cup, and throw the cup away. While the grown-up version of myself is very concerned at the mess that would make while taking out the garbage, my elementary school self was mostly concerned with the texture of the fluoride treatment.
The feeling of pumping the treatment into the cup, the sloshy feeling it had hitting the cup... the pretend-minty smell... even now, I am thinking of puking just thinking about it. In fact, this comic explains exactly what I thought might happen if I went twice a week... every week.
And so I decided to lie. My brother Chris would go into the library, and I would say "yup, be right there" and hide in the bathroom until I thought he had gone. One week I distinctly remember hiding behind some fake tree near the library's entrance. Later, when my brother was in Jr. High I remember thinking "maybe if I pretend I didn't notice the fluoride treatment set-up today it will be okay."
The thing is... I think it cost my parents $.25 a treatment. As I said earlier, we didn't have extra money for things like dancing or art classes... but this was a priority to them. And I can see why - as a person who regularly gets prescribed high-fluoride toothpastes by dentists, I wish I hadn't been so grossed out by the whole process. And not chosen this to be one of my three acts of elementary rebellion.
However, it was in this rebellion I could still be a "good child" and say "screw you" to the man at the same time. I guess I learned my lesson... pay attention to your parents when they say "go get fluoride treatment."
And a lesson for people who make this stuff... can you work on texture!?!? There are 7 year-olds out there that are grossed out.
4 comments:
I'm so glad I'm not the only one who hated the flouride treatments. We had to do them in class--my 3rd grade teacher made us do it in front of everyone and THAT was mortifying. I dreaded when the teacher brought in the set up each week.
MY rebellion was I always tried to fake sick, but my mom was too smart to fall for it.
That's so funny, Sarah. I remember my mom just giving me a fluoride pill with my Flintstones vitamin every day. I have no idea where she got them from, but I guess I lucked out with not having to do the liquid treatment thing.
Where's number three? I want rebel yell non-southern number three!
...I mean, you did get voice lessons, didn't you? And you see how that turned out!
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