Listerine Man Goes for a Ride

“Hey, look!” Ed yelled. “It’s Listerine Man! They’re taking him away!”

I looked up the street, and sure enough, there he was. No, Listerine Man isn’t that guy in the stupid costume you see in the commercials. Listerine Man is just a bum. He usually sits on the sidewalk outside our building, drinking Listerine every day. Except today he was spread-eagled on the cement, with an empty bottle of mouthwash still clutched in his hand. Nobody would care, except that he had inconveniently passed out right where everybody wanted to walk. There was a cruiser parked at the curb, and two cops were trying to figure out what to do with him. I saw the first housefly of the season land on Listerine Man’s cheek and begin to wash itself in the spring sunshine – there was carrion to find, and eggs to lay.

“Man, he must have really tied one on! He’s passed right out!” Ed said. A small crowd was gathering around. Listerine Man moaned piteously.

“Get the plastic,” one of the cops said.

“Roger that,” said the other. He popped the trunk, and took out this big honking roll of plastic, which he began to spread around in the back seat of the cruiser. Everybody began to laugh and trade jokes:

“Is that a body-bag for the homeless? Or do you use a giant Zip-Loc for that?”

“Look! Cop cars come equipped with Drunk-Wrap! ”

“At least his breath won’t smell too bad!”

“Are you guys taking him to Listerine-Drinkers Anonymous?”

After a lot of grunting and straining, the cops managed to dump Listerine Man in the back of their car, at which point the crowd applauded and hooted. “Nothing to see! Nothing to see here!” another guy whooped. We all departed for our lunches, clucking about the gutter depravity of a man willing to drink a bottle of Listerine to get a cheap buzz.

It’s unfortunate that Listerine Man went too far today with his little hobby, doing something that a lot of people probably regard as hitting rock bottom, right down there with sniffing gas or shaving cream aerosols. But maybe he’s brighter than he looks – later on, after his carcass was hauled away, I went and looked up the ingredients of Listerine on the internet:

Menthol, thymol, methyl salicylate, eucalyptol, and…alcohol. In fact, Listerine has twenty-seven percent alcohol – the exact same consumable variety that we enjoy each night in our bourbons or vodkas, a fact I bet a lot of people don’t know about. Hell, I didn't. If I thought about it at all, I assumed it was "some other kind." And all those other ingredients are non-toxic flavoured oils, some of which are used in breath mints and other similar sorts of candies.

And when you think about it, why would Listerine contain anything dangerous or toxic? People swish it around in their mouths, for crying out loud – why would the makers put some kind of poison in it?

The answer is, of course they don’t. So for only a couple of bucks a day, Listerine Man can get as drunk as he pleases, probably have the world’s freshest breath, and battle gingivitis in the bargain. What’s so bad about that? It’s better than drinking antifreeze.

“What an idiot that guy must be,” Ed sneered later on, playing with his belly. He likes to pat it after he eats, and we had all-you-can-eat pasta for lunch today.

Oh, is he Ed? Is he?