WhaHappen?

That when someone is brushing their teeth, it’s a perfectly executed event. No foaming, no dripping strings of saliva, no toothpaste splattering across the vanity mirror or not even shrapnel hitting you right in the eye. In fact: NO toothpaste at all is ever seen! Why is that?

Aggressive teethbrushing involves large motor skills to work that brush like a rototiller. The paste is exploding into my hair and dripping down my chin. It’s very much a scene from Quarantine , with all that foam around the rabid mouth. And yes, I do supply my own disturbing gagging sound effects as I mow with my brush head all the way to the back of my tongue. No Foley needed.

Is the vision of someone brushing their teeth using real paste such a hideous, unspeakable scene that it has to be sanitized, so to speak? I guess it’s not on the same scale as, say, when someone’s going No. 2 in a movie, they don’t need to show anyone actually wiping, unless it’s an Adam Sandler, Rob Schneider, Ben Stiller, et al, movie. Which by the way, I love those lowbrow flicks. You Don’t Mess With the Zohan almost made me pee in my pants.

But back to the issue of “faux movie scenes” (redundant), my husband won’t watch movies as a matter of principle. Especially action flicks. Simply because he can’t stand how “Oh – my – god! There’s NO WAY that could EVER happen!” And he gets so unbelievably annoyed that he actually has to look away in disgust. It’s just too much to ask for him to suspend disbelief for entertainment’s sake. The nerve of those industry people to make movies that are so not like real life. Helllloooo… that’s why they call it a moo-vieee. Say it with me Jace (my husband), mooo-vieeee.

He gets upset over minor details, like how you can actually make a bullet’s trajectory curve (which he wouldn’t know is possible – duh! – since he didn’t see Wanted ). I, on the other hand, get totally irritated that in movies women wake up looking impossibly hot. Perfect makeup – check; no bad breath – check. Even the messy hair looks porn-quality pretty.

This, my friends, is wrong. Talk about pathetically having to measure up to that male fantasy. Let’s view The Reality footage taped at my home: The makeup was removed before going to bed. And if it wasn’t, mascara has most certainly congealed with the overnight-formed eye boogers. And then there’s the bane of my existence, chapped lips. (Yes, I’m a lip balm addict.)

Also, the reality version has me waking up, not in the nude with the sheet strategically covering the R-rated parts, but rather wearing my tattered bra (which by way never matches my underwear like in the movies) with the semi-broken hinge and the underwire poking through, obviously trying to escape its own embarrassment.

And for the record, no one in their right mind in California (is that an oxymoron?) should sleep in the nude anyway because you never know when you’re going to have to jump out a window during an earthquake. Or a fire. Or a mudslide. Or a riot. Or a protest.

So there you go. Two things in movies that drive me nuts.