After work I stopped by Wal-Mart to stock up on a few items. As I was wandering through the great unwashed I stopped by the toothpaste aisle. At home I have an electric toothbrush made by Braun. I love the thing; it's rechargeable and is not wimpy. It feels like I am running a power tool across my teeth. I just squirt some toothpaste on it and run it over my teeth as it furiously brushed with a loud RRRRRRRRR! Sound. That's some clean teeth right there.
I like the toothbrush, however the brushes have been wearing out. I wandered around the toothbrush aisle to see if I could find any replacement tips. Alas, I did not see any. However, my eyes then alighted on a wonder. A musical toothbrush.
'Tooth Tunes' they were called. They are toothbrushes that use a technology to transmit music into your teeth so that you can hear it in your ear. I had actually heard of this technology a while back. Teeth are actually very sensitive to sound. Beethoven used to bite his piano so he could hear the music through his teeth. Somehow people devised a way to transmit the music vibrations to a plastic so when your teeth touch it you hear the music in your head.
The idea of my skull being pumped with music as I brushed my teeth simply tickled me. I started pulling the brushes off the hook, trying to find a tune that was not Kelly Clarkson or some other teen-bop music. Much to my surprise I found a toothbrush that held Queens 'We will rock you'. I gawked at it a moment in awe. I had a brief vision of blearily walking into my bathroom in the morning, sticking a toothbrush into my mouth, and suddenly my skull explodes with the throbbing with the claps and beats as Freddie Mecury's vaguely asexual voice thunders through my skull. When the final guitar riff almost jars the teeth out of my mouth, I would dramatically spit and stride out of the bathroom ready to take on anything that the world might throw at me that day.
The vision was so beautiful that a tear rolled down my eye and I lovingly put the toothbrush into my shopping cart.
The next morning I happily jumped out of bed and took my shower, eager to try my new toothbrush. I squirted on some Listerine toothpaste and then stuck it in my mouth, my knees weak with anticipation. I braced myself against the sink for the private concert that was sure to thunder through my skull.
Alas, nothing happened. I did not hear anything. Annoyed, I turned off the running sink water so that the room was utterly quiet. I concentrated, and then waay off in the distance I heard a tiny beat. It was the Opening sequence of 'We will rock you' with the claps and stomps. However, it was so tiny and small I could hardly make it out. It sounded more like a washing machine thumping in the distance.
Annoyed, I finished brushing my teeth (with a brush that's inferior to my Braun powerbrush). I was quite annoyed with myself. I had paid eight bucks for that stupid toothbrush. I suddenly had a deep case of buyer's remorse. Another one of life's little disappointments.
2026 Update
Setting the clock for April 2007, when an eight-dollar toothbrush promised to put Queen inside Ed's skull and delivered a distant washing machine.
Ah, 2007: a year when Wal-Mart was still a temple of late-night impulse purchases and the promised miracle of "music through your teeth" could be yours for eight dollars. The Tooth Tunes era now feels like the cave painting of an entire gadget lineage. Nineteen years later, the wonders are dumber and more demanding: your toothbrush syncs to an app, your toothpaste arrives by subscription, and your music is beamed into your skull by streaming services that vanish when you stop paying. We traded the clap-and-stomp of "We Will Rock You" for a weekly "your routine score is down" notification. Ed trudged through a store with real shelves to find a toothbrush; now I yell at an app because a delivery driver left my dental floss in the lobby. The specific crushing letdown of paying eight dollars and hearing a distant washing machine has been industrialized. That model no longer exists. Now it's a small monthly fee and absolutely no surprise at all.
“2007 Ed, you paid eight dollars for a toothbrush that claimed to pump Queen through your skull and instead gave you the distant thump of a washing machine—did you actually return the thing, or is it still in a drawer as a monument to bad decisions?” — Beelzebubba the Third
2007 Ed: Egads, Beelzebubba, you've hit on one of the sorest spots of my 2007. Eight bucks. EIGHT. That's a box of cheap wine, or two gallons of gas, or... a toothbrush that can't even do its one job. Did I return it? Ha. I told myself I would, every morning for a week. Then I'd open the drawer, see that little yellow-and-black package mocking me, and think, 'Nah, Wal-Mart is too far, and there's a chance the cashier will remember me as the guy who bought the Queen toothbrush.' So it sits in the bathroom drawer, right next to the spare Braun head I finally ordered online. It's a monument, all right. A monument to my own inability to resist gimmicks. Every time I brush my teeth with my good brush, I can hear it in there, whispering, 'We will, we will... not rock you.' Take that, foul germs.
