I’m cranky this morning. Like many people, I have kind of a ritual I go through when I get out of bed. The first thing I do is wander, bleary-eyed, into the bathroom to do my business. Then I stop by the sink and brush my teeth. The day just doesn’t seem right if I can’t brush my teeth first thing.

So why am I cranky? The toothpaste tube was empty, and I grabbed one of those little sample tubes that come in the mail from time to time. Crest wanting me to try their new flavor, I guess. Heck, it’s toothpaste, right? I squeezed a bit out onto my brush, put the thing in my mouth and … nearly vomited.

High on the list of things that you just shouldn’t mess with is toothpaste. Long before I started brushing my teeth, civilization figured out that the proper flavor for toothpaste was mint. It doesn’t really matter what kind of mint, as long as it has that … well, that minty flavor. And consistency matters, too. Toothpaste is done.

But can they leave well enough alone? No! Some idiot at the Crest toothpaste company decided that they needed a cinnamon flavor. To compete with cinnamon Altoids, perhaps? Who knows what goes through their minds? I know it’s hard to believe that they even thought of making a non-mint toothpaste, but for sure their taste testers should have nixed this crap before it ever got out of the lab. The stuff tastes like bathtub caulk mixed with just a hint of fake cinnamon–maybe from one of those Atomic Fireball candies. And it left a sour aftertaste in the back of my mouth. To top it all off, it has the consistency of bathtub caulk, too. Toothpaste is supposed to be a little moist–almost runny. It’s not supposed to suck all the moisture off your tongue when you put it in your mouth.

Fortunately, I was able to get rid of that taste by gargling with Listerine, and I brushed my teeth with Scope, if you can believe it. So I’m not as cranky as I could be. But it was a close thing.

Fair warning: check the flavor on that toothpaste tube before you squeeze some out onto your brush. You do not want the kind of rude surprise that I got this morning.

And to the people who make toothpaste: Stop messing with it! Just make sure that it cleans my teeth and leaves my mouth feeling minty fresh. Some things are perfect just the way they’ve been for a hundred years, thank you very much. Spend your time on real problems, like figuring out how to make a floss that doesn’t get stuck between my teeth, or maybe a “scrubbing bubbles” mouthwash that I can swish around instead of having to use the dang brush. But make sure that it’s a mint flavor, okay?