You ever wonder what makes someone who ordinarily is a nice, calm, friendly person one day just lose it and become SuperBitch? You'd swear they think the sun shines out of their arses. Welcome to the Division of Pharmacology, Dept. of Internal Medicine, University of Cape Town, where said people are kinda getting on my wick today. Anyway... there is a new billboard along the highway, the great 'n' mighty N1 which runs from just outside the harbour at the edge of the CBD right up through the Karoo deserts, to the Free State and beyond, through Johannesburg and Pretoria and right up to Beitbridge - the Zimbabwean border post. In Cape Town we have three major National roads - the N1, the N2 running along the south and southeast coast and the N7 heading north to Namibia; there are these massive billboards along all of 'em. Nevertheless, in addition to the Jockey Underwear one on the N1 with the 4 backsides (3 guys and a girl, it turns out; not 2 and 2 as I thought previously, so one of the chaps definitely has a bit of a girly bum) and the new SuperSport3 24-hours-a-day of Soccer channel and the VodaCom Cellular one and others, there is the new Aquafresh Extreme Cleaning toothpaste one, all stylish in pale orange, blue and green with white backgrounds. Fair enough, I suppose. But - and there is always a but (the 4 down the road notwithstanding) - I am getting a little concerned with Aquafresh toothpaste. In the beginning, when we moved here from further north in Zimbabwe, there was Aquafresh original. 4 stripes - 2 white, 1 red, 1 blue - each doing something for your teeth and mouth and preventing cavities and adding fluoride and whatever in all its minty glory. Then, with massive fanfare, there was Aquafresh Spearmint - seems the other mint was merely peppermint - and the blue stripe was replaced with a green one. Very Italian and Mexican flag, with its red white and green stripes. Then they threw in (as did all other toothpaste people) baking soda, for extra whitening. Cool, whatever, you know. I'm down with that. It must be said at this point that all this kinda happened in the background; as far as we Taylors were concerned, we'd always shunned this bourgeois toothpaste for the more plebian Macleans in the blue box, which we even used to use back in ol' Zim, or Macleans with baking soda if we felt the need for change. We were never keen on the others we tried - that whole Mentadent and Close-up and Colgate and all that other nonsense just didn't quite cut the proverbial mustard. And still don't, so we still use Macleans, although I did find some Aquafresh with baking soda in the bathroom this morning. NEvertheless, onward to Aquafresh Herbal, with that particularly horrific advert featuring what can only be Germans, judging by the dubbing, out hiking along some lake and then running into - and striking up a conversation with - an animated beaver (and not in the fratboy sense of the word beaver, either, unfortunately) about how he gets his teeth so strong. I hate shitty adverts. It really puts me off a product. Not that I would go for organic herbal hoity-toity toothpaste anyway, as mentioned earlier. Still, two bad ideas - 1.) herbal toothpaste. I mean, for fcuk's sake, people! and 2.) an animated beaver discussing oral hygiene with strangers. Seriously, no. Then came Aquafresh Whitening with bleach, at about 16 bucks a tube local currency, with all other toothpaste known to man (except the medical ones like Sensodyne, which also has a ridiculous advert "Now I can enjoy iced tea with ice!") hovering at about 4 bucks a tube. I'm not so sure the extra twelve bucks is worth the idea of having, you know, bleach in your mouth. I mean, why not just brush, gargle and have a Jik chaser, right? Crikey, people! But now, the new one - Aquafresh Extreme Clean. Now there is extreme sport (which is code for anything involving non-uniforms and where you can just wear branded street gear if it's on ESPN, with crappy commentators); probably fair enough. And there is the extreme makeover, which is a frightening concept, really, but hey, why not? But extreme toothpaste? I have been told in the past that I am not well-adjusted. In other words, my idea of extreme toothpaste would be bite-sized fragments of C-4, detonated remotely, to remove plaque and vaporise cavity-causing bacteria. Oh yeah, and to vaporise your teeth. And gums. And tongue and cheeks and sinuses and everything. And heaven forbid you swallow the toothpaste inadvertantly, because you really wouldn't want that to happen. -d-