When you work at home, you sometimes forget the necessary things when you go into the office.

I am working for a client in San Jose, California. One of the more unusual observations I have at this office is the frequency with which people brush their teeth. It’s a 50/50 chance every time I go to the men’s room that someone will be in there brushing his teeth. The odds go up at or around lunchtime. I have worked at other offices around the country and have never noticed such a high incidence of this behavior.

I don’t feel the need to brush my teeth during the day. I might floss after a meal, but brushing once in the morning and once at bedtime seems to be sufficient for me.

One thing I do is consciously manage my breath in the office. Without active management, breath odor can be out of control. And it’s hard to detect your own bad breath. There is nothing worse than being in close quarters with a coworker and getting a whiff of bad breath. Coffee breath, garlic/onion breath, curry breath, it doesn’t matter. It’s all bad. 

I carry around Listerine breath strips and mints/gum to ensure I can be minty fresh at a moment’s notice. I consider it common courtesy when enclosed in cubicles/office/meeting rooms for so many hours each day.

For some reason I was just reminded of a product I heard advertised on the Howard Stern Show year ago called Sphincterine. As you can tell by the url (which is now either a Japanese or Chinese website), the product was geared toward keeping another body part fresh: mintyass.com