Adam@Home by Rob Harrell for January 09, 2011

It’s nice to know you can discuss such a delicate issue.

If it was about replacing the toilet paper roll, now that can be an emotional issue.

Only one out of three of my kids got the idea…..

one brand has on the directions “for best results, squeeze tube from bottom…” as though it will work more effectively

Adam and Laura may just have saved their children’s future marriages, if not their lives.

As in so many things my geezer memory reminds me that there once (and probably still) was an app for this. I don’t think it was RONCO but I seem to recall that there was an electric toothpaste dispenser that had a roller that squeezed the tube from the bottom. It seemed to be advertised around the Christmas gift-buying season. Imagine opening this gift up on Christmas …

Adam brilliant! Using a toothpaste tube is a wonderful metaphor.

Did I just say Adam was brilliant?!? Oh…I get it. This really is about the toothpaste tube.

That may have mattered with the old metallic tubes, but the new plastic tubes make end squeezing irrelevant.

So why the total disappearance of toothpaste pumps that were once so popular?

/\See previous comment.

the pumps worked great! Little to no waste. They were just costly to make, and couldn’t be sold for a decent price.

I take great pains to use every drop of toothpaste - I’m poor, and it’s expensive! When the tube gets sufficiently ‘empty’ I take it to the kitchen, make sure the cap is on, and run a plastic spatula from the bottom to the cap end, to make sure ALL available toothpaste is up there for my use. :D

I have one of those “tools” for the toothpaste tube that keeps the tube flat from the bottom up. Convenient little gadget and it is flat so it doesn’t take up much space.

ponytail56, the toothpaste doesn’t work more or less efficiently, but the tube works much better if you don’t allow lots of toothpaste to get lost at the bottom.

Pity these kids will never age – I’d love to see how Adam would have handled the REAL “talk”! And since Clayton is a couple of years older than Katie, they both could start puberty at exactly the same time, just to keep things interesting…

I have a little white plastic key that rolls the tube from the bottom up. Works much like those old sardine can keys.

But my parents didn’t have “the talk” with me or my sister. How we suffered!

I have a little widget from the dollar store that rolls the tube up and squeezes everything out. Keeps it all nice and the best part is it only cost a buck.

laugh Oh, the mundane things we get all worked up about. It’s a small matter.