2521: Toothpaste
| Toothpaste |
 Title text: "9 out of 10 dentists have banned me from their offices." |
Explanation
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This explanation may be incomplete or incorrect: Created by a SQUEEZED-OUT TOOTHPASTE TUBE - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon. If you can address this issue, please edit the page! Thanks. |
Here, we see more of Megan's "wordplay". Unlike in 2352: Synonym Date and 2245: Edible Arrangements, she's not trying to make her friend uncomfortable -- it just happens anyway.
Putting toothpaste back in its tube is often used as an analogy for something irreversible, such as how you can't undo speaking. Megan flips this analogy and says that you can put toothpaste back in it's tube. When Cueball is disgusted by this she says she can unsay it like putting toothpaste back in its tube.
Transcript
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This transcript is incomplete. Please help editing it! Thanks. |
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The editing done so far looks fairly good. Hopefully not too many reversions, or it might be like moving the deckchairs back to their original locations on the Titanic! 172.70.35.70 05:46, 28 September 2021 (UTC)
Was Megan going to say: "It's just like- putting toothpaste back in the tube"? If so this should go into the description (and if not then what was she going to say?) --Kynde (talk) 08:40, 28 September 2021 (UTC)
Putting the mouth over the tube? It is not the tooth paste in your mouth that needs to get back. It is that on the tooth brush... I think it is possible (although not sanitary) to get tooth paste still in a blob on the tooth brush into the tube if it is a soft plastic tube. Because then when you press it together, the air comes out, and then when you release it will suck air back in (I have seen how the paste coming out gets sucked back in if it is not put on the brush). But if you then put the end of the tube onto the blob of toothpaste on the brush, it would suck the paste right back in. So I think it is true that you can get the paste back in the tube. But not by blowing, and of course there are many kinds of toothpaste containers, and not all of them could suck it back in. You should not put it back but you could! So it is a bad saying, and Megan is correct in pointing that out. What she suggest is disgusting, though, for sure. If that is the worst she ever said, though, she has been too kind to Cueball :-D In some ways it is not a very great comic, but I guess the fun part is when she assumes that she can take something bad said back because Cueball states you can do with things said like tooth paste back in a tube, and since you can put toothpaste back in the tube, she must be able to take her words back. --Kynde (talk) 08:50, 28 September 2021 (UTC)
- The tubes I have experience with may be able to suck a bit of paste back, but not much of it - they have little to no elasticity or how it's called, you permanently deform them when squeezing paste out. You would need to apply pressure, which, well, you either need some machine for or blow into them. -- Hkmaly (talk) 16:09, 28 September 2021 (UTC)
I disagree that blowing paste into tube is disgusting. Now, reusing such paste, sure, although it's unlikely to be that much unhygienic as I don't think the bacteria can survive in tooth paste for long. -- Hkmaly (talk) 16:09, 28 September 2021 (UTC)
- It would depend on the composition of the toothpaste, whether it has any bactericidal components or has a high enough concentration of soluble/dissolved compounds to inhibit bacteria by osmosis. Bacteria do just fine in many kinds of makeup, by way of comparison. BunsenH (talk) 20:52, 29 September 2021 (UTC)
Putting toothpaste back in the tube is easy with a syringe or an icing gun. But I want to know what happened at the 10th dentist's office? Cwallenpoole (talk) 16:58, 28 September 2021 (UTC)
I always heard it as "you can't put the genie back in the bottle". 172.70.34.165 18:02, 28 September 2021 (UTC)
i have literally never heard this expression 172.70.34.91 22:12, 28 September 2021 (UTC)Bumpf
Am I the only person who sees this as vaguely flirty? I kinda expect the next panel to be Megan grabbing Cueball and kissing him to metaphorically suck the words back in. 172.68.133.167 19:28, 29 September 2021 (UTC) person who isn't sure how signing comments works.
- To reverse talking, she'd suck on his ear, no? Once, when shopping for noise-cancelling headphones, I asked the clerk to blow on them because I wanted to hear whether it was capable of cancelling wind noise. She happily complied, commenting "It's been a long time since I blew a man in his ear." So yes, I see a flirty component there. --162.158.92.61 13:32, 5 November 2021 (UTC)
You actually can put SOME of the toothpaste back in the tube. Squeeze the tube on the surfaces of the tube that are perpendicular to the surfaces you squeezed to get the toothpaste out in the first place. The originally squeezed surfaces will start to revert to their original shape, creating a void of pressure that sucks some of the toothpaste back in the tube. I'm going to write my congressman about this horrible, misleading punch line and the danger it poses to society. Longtimereadfirsttimeposter (talk) 16:09, 2 October 2021 (UTC)
