101 Things #39 - Toothbrushes galore

We are all collectors, are we not? Some go for pottery, some for dolls, some for beer mats or computer games. I myself collect rejection slips (little writer's joke there). Therefore, as I consider ideas for inclusion in my still unaccountably expanding, anti-bucket-list 101 Things I Refuse To Do Before I Die, I am certainly not going to have a go at the activity of collecting. It is a fine way to have fun, learn and perhaps become an authority on your chosen subject.

What, however, appears to be an utterly daft suggestion is to

Collect 100 toothbrushes. 

I found this on the bucket-list ideas on UpJourney.com and I have no intention whatsoever of even beginning to contemplate going about it. Or so I thought when I began considering my approach to what seemed like an easy piece of derision.

All pics: Amazon

We all what a toothbrush looks like. Here's one, for example. We've all, at some time, bought or been given one. We rip away the packaging and discard it. We place the brush in a handy spot in the bathroom and at appropriate times smear it with paste and let rip inside our mouths.

At first sight it seemed that there was little more to say and it was self-evidently pointless collecting any other than those needed to do a job, and those in turn would be discarded once the bristles started splaying out in all directions. Of course one could keep pristine versions inside their little cardboard and cellophane wrappers, perhaps collect loads and hang on a rack just like in the shops; I would, I think, class such behaviour as bordering on the pathological and, if showed one such set by a proud owner, find myself picking up my phone and pretending I have just had an text urgently requiring my presence in the next county.

And then I began to have second thoughts.

Here is another brush. It does exactly the same job as the first but it has a different shape, the head is not angled, the bristles seem coarser and have a different colour and the handle is very different and possibly made of wood rather than plastic. Gosh. Can toothbrushes actually be interesting? Is there a case for seeking out variations so that they can displayed as an illustration of human ingenuity and crafting skills?


It wasn't long after that I had third thoughts. These things are still toothbrushes. If you hang them on the walls it will look weird, inside or outside their wrappers. One could, perhaps, invest in an antique set of drawers, the ones that are very shallow so you get lots of them, and then fill them with carefully labelled brushes and you could slide out one drawer at a time to gloat over the way the light catches the plastic .... You see where I am going with this? It begins to seem that the only way to make any sense of this bucket-list item is to embellish it with all the trappings of serious collecting, the way one might display rare old coins or items of ancient pottery.

 But, coming back to reality, let us remind ourselves that the vast majority of toothbrushes look something like this. How much pleasure can one really derive from contemplating this object and then, with a sinking heart, remind oneself that there are 99 pretty well the same bar some trivial differences.

 I was on the point of concluding this piece, having, it seemed, got it back on track when I had fourth thoughts (and believe me, reader, these are the strangest yet in connection with this topic).

Had I got it all wrong? Anyone could go into a chemist and buy a toothbrush to add to the collection. Hell, you could probably buy ten or twenty different ones in one shopping trip. Where's the challenge in that?  Why on earth would the brainy folk behind UpJourney have suggested it? This leaves us with two fascinating possibilities for making this collection interesting.

1. Collect unusual variants only. Each one must be made of a different substance for the handle and the bristles to any other. Platinum handles. Ivory. Papier-maché. Moon-rock. Brushes made from hairs hand-cut from a Javanese tiger and cured on the naked thighs of the virgins of Cochin, or spun from the whiskers of walruses, or carbon fibres made using nano-technology. If you have the funds you could bid for one of the fabulous Fabergé brushes given to the Tsar in 1902 and 1903 (before he suggested, politely, that an Easter egg might be more fun).
2. Collect used toothbrushes and, before you go "Yeeurgh, how gross", let me add the magic words "belonging to celebrities" -

• A brush casually discarded by Jimi Hendrix just before going on stage at the Isle of Wight in 1970. 
• A wooden and badger-hair Merridew & Withers "No 8 special" found near one of Jack the Ripper's victims. 
• The very brush Washington dropped into the Delaware during that crossing.
  And why stop there?  
• Seek out the very shop in Transylvania wherein Count Dracula found the wherewithal to clean his fangs and those of some of his pet werewolves.
• If the Topkapi Museum in Istanbul can display, shamelessly, the "Staff of Moses" and the "Sword of David", then why not the brush, still in its wrapper with the label saying "Sale - only 2 shekels" with which Judas gave his gnashers a quick once-over before that fatal meeting with the Romans? 
• And, somewhere underneath Glastonbury, I bet we could unearth the very gentleman's grooming kit lost by Merlin (which is why he is always depicted looking so unkempt and with stained teeth). 

Maybe there are some who would scour the world for toothbrushes made of coral, or with heads designed by wise old elders in the Upper Amazon, or with a built-in microprocessor that tells your mobile phone the state of each tooth and they mount their favourites over the mantle-piece and polish them up on Sundays. Perhaps, in some side alley off the Portobello Road, a furtive little man might beckon you over and open his coat to reveal a toothbrush thought to have been used by Princess Diana.  There may be much to fascinate collectors who take either, or indeed both, of the above paths.

I've had fifth thoughts. This is becoming rather silly. I see no point in a drawerful of fanciful brushes and I don't regard celebrity stuff as worth having. I shall not be joining the ranks of collectors. I am giving this one the brush-off.