by Penny Moss

Created on: April 30, 2008

Susan stood in the grocery store aisle looking at the different toothpaste brands for a good fifteen minutes. She had to wonder if all these so called "whitening agents" made one bit of difference with healthy teeth. Really, would her visits to the dentist be less if she bought the dentist recommended brand? Probably not. Normally she always bought the same brand and the same flavor anyway. But for some reason today she found herself comparative shopping. Simply, she wondered if she should try something different. Obviously the best bargain was the paste in the tube. Not the one with the stand up cap or the one with designer packaging. Just the one in the simple twist off top and generic labeled tube.

Gosh, she could remember as a kid when she brushed her teeth with baking soda every now and then because her parents ran out of toothpaste. Or, more likely, they couldn't afford toothpaste. Now days there were teeth cleaning agents including that very thing and proudly promoting it as a recommended dental cavity preventing agent. It made her laugh. She absolutely hated those moments as a child when she had to use baking soda. The idea of running out of toothpaste in her adult life was determined likely from that childhood memory. So she reached for the buy one get one free basic toothpaste and moved away from aisle number three.

As she rounded the corner toward the check out she reviewed her list of items one last time. Scanning her list and double checking that she had everything she made way to the cashier. Shopping for necessities was one of her most despised chores. Was it because she always was dragged to the store as a child? These thoughts of her childhood kept popping up in her mind. It was a sign, she knew.

All her life she had these visions. Well, they weren't visions actually. They were more like feelings. Sometimes the hair would raise up on her arms or the back of her neck. Goosebumps would form across her back and she would shiver.

"Crisscross applesauce, spiders crawling up your back, tight squeeze here, tight squeeze there, cool breeze...Now you got the chills."

Her sister, Mattie, always used to say that poem while she drew out the motions on her back. It was a game they played before going to sleep. She shivered just thinking about it.

"That will be $48.65 please."

Startled, Susan shook her head and became a scavenger looking for her debit card. How embarrassing this was. The cashier was doing the typical eye roll and sigh while trying to pretend

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