The Final Squeeze

Always one final use.

Try as he might, Steven couldn’t get another glob of toothpaste from the tube. He used every method he could think of short of putting it in a vice grip and getting one more use, and he was willing to try it if he had a table vice.

He searched the cabinets for more of the tubes. There was sore muscle cream, rash cream, and an assortment of face and skin creams his wife used, but nothing he could put on his toothbrush. Well, there was the one time he tried the tubed cortisone cream when he was drowsy, but that was his own fault, and his wife told him that often.

Then he had an idea, along the lines of the vice grip. He took the tube into the kitchen and located the rolling pin behind the good dishes on the top shelf. The rolling pin hadn’t been used in a year, so he ran it under the faucet for a few seconds to get dust off of it, though, the pin itself would go nowhere near any ingestible part. He took off the tube cap and laid the tube on the floor on a towel. Starting at the back of the tube, he slowly rolled the pin over the tube.

“What on earth are you doing?” his wife Janna asked as he was on his hands and knees in his skivvies on the floor.

“I know it’s not what it looks like,” said Steven.

“You have no idea what I’m thinking right now, Steven, but I’m nearly ready to call the Funny Farm.”

“No need because I almost got one more drop out of this tube.”

She walked to the pantry and grabbed four full tubes of toothpaste and tossed them on the floor beside Steven.

“Plenty more where that came from, Steven. You only needed to ask.”

Steven looked at the four tubes scattered in front of him and smiled.

“See this here?” he said as he held up the flattened tube with a dab of toothpaste at the opening. “Now that is satisfaction. One last full use. And FYI, I’m tossing it out tonight. No point in going all nutso to get the very last drop. I’ll start on one of these tubes tomorrow. I knew where they were all along. I just wanted to make you feel useful, and it looks like I’ve succeeded in doing that.”

“Right. And I’m still considering that call to the Funny Farm, Steven.”

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