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I Am A Married Woman, You Parsley-Toothed Idiot

I am really anal about my oral health. The teeth are brushed usually 3 times a day (once after each meal), I floss religiously, I use an anti-bacterial plaque rinse and I keep a supply of Altoids in my purse for those moments in between when I eat things like tzatziki and am not able to acquire the minty freshness that brushing can bring.

When you're a Food Whore, even though your business is food, you don't want to be a walking advertisement for your product. There is no need to be a live-action billboard for your spinach salad or so offensive of garlic that even vampires all the way in Transylvania drop like flies.

The hard part is when you are at something like a social function or a business luncheon and you can't spend all your time checking your teeth in the silver to make sure all is clear. The Husband and I have signals we use if we happen to be in a room full of people. I don't want to give away all of the secrets from our playbook (No need to give Greg Brady another reason to want to steal it. Again - if you got that - you're as pathetic as I am when it comes to TV Trivia)

Anyway, a run of the tongue across the teeth can mean there's food in your teeth or there's lipstick on your teeth. The lipstick reference being totally for my benefit, of course. The Husband would want me to make it clear that he might be a borderline Metrosexual, but he's not into lip care beyond the tub of Carmex he packs around.

The problem we both face is when in the company of others and are faced with someone's
"lunch in their teeth" crisis. If you know the person it's easy to say, "Sally sweetie, you've got Poppy Seed City going on in your bi-cuspids." But if you are a stranger or making a potential business deal, it's a tricky situation.

The dilemma being A) Do you embarrass the person on the spot but save them from further embarrassment down the road? Or B) Do you ignore the offending plaque buddy and let the person have private embarrassment alone in their car, but potentially making them so embarrassed that they knew you had to sit and try not to focus on their teeth the entire meeting.

It's a tough call.

I had a meeting with a potential client last night and damn if he didn't have what appeared to be a piece of parsley stuck between his front two teeth. Now, I had to ask myself how he missed this. I realize men aren't as obsessive about checking the mirror as women are. But didn't he at any time after his meal use the restroom to wash his hands and do a general once over before the meeting???

So I sat there with that dilemma - what the Hell do I do? Do I tell this man and embarrass him to the point that he might not become a client? Or do I let him go and do the embarrassed in private thing.

I opted to try and give him subtle signals in hopes that my actions would cause that subliminal place in his brain to think, "Is this woman trying to tell me something?".

It did make him think I was trying to tell him something, but it became perfectly clear it was the wrong something.

I made the mistake of casually and subtly using the "running the tongue" over the teeth trick and it backfired. I mean, it wasn't like I was wearing bright red lipstick on collagen-injected lips and behaved like a girl at a porn audition. It was casual and lady like. It was a few lip-closed teeth swipes and you would have thought I opened my blouse and popped a garter-ebmellished thigh up onto the table.

Get that Cheshire cat grin off your face, stop looking at me that way, and no I won't have dinner with you. I am a married woman you parsley-toothed idiot.

Which then led to having to tell the poor sap about the parsley, anyway. And then apologizing for my poor judgment in assuming he would understand the subtle signals and then reassuring him that I was not offended he asked me to dinner even though he could clearly see my large and visible wedding ring.

It was a very awkward and somewhat tense 5 minutes of explanations.

But in the end there was a lot of laughter, a lot of apologizing, and a signed contract to feed 350 of his closest friends.

It takes a lot of people skills to be The Food Whore.

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Posted by Foodwhore at April 20, 2004 01:39 PM