Dirty, dirty mouth

I feel bad enough paying a stranger to clean my apartment, so even though I can't help worrying about what she might be doing in there, I try to push it to the back of my middle class guilt-ridden mind. This strategy was working pretty well for me - until last night.

While I'm sure there are endless opportunities for contamination, for some reason I fixate on my toothbrush. I can barely manage to wash my face without knocking one to three items into the sink/floor/toilet, so I can't imagine how our cleaning woman could manage to de-filth our teeny tiny bathroom without ever bumping a toothbrush or two off the sink into something disturbing.

So I usually hide my toothbrush in its traveling case thingy or start using a new one after the apartment is cleaned... usually, but not always. Because I am that lazy. But before the cleaning woman came yesterday morning I noticed my boyfriend's toothbrush in the bathroom garbage and decided to toss mine too, after asking him if we had replacements.

Then something odd happened. When I went to brush my teeth last night, the brushes were back. Hm, I thought. Maybe the replacements were the same colors, and my boyfriend kindly put mine in the holder for me (so romantic!). So I texted him asking him which was mine, to which he replied "either one." I thought this was strange... I figured he replaced them because he brushed his teeth before he went out. (This is where I become irrationally germaphobic for someone who can't even be bothered to clean her own apartment.)

So when I picked up one of the brushes I couldn't help sniffing it... and it smelled like stale toothpaste! Upon further inspection, I noticed some toothpaste residue as well as slight wear and tear. GASP! I dropped the toothbrush and texted my boyfriend again (he loves that), asking if he was SURE the toothbrushes were new because they didn't seem new... He texted back saying they were UNDER THE SINK. Ewwwwwwww.

I almost used a utensil to clean my mouth that had been SITTING IN BATHROOM WASTE. A vivid picture came to me of the cleaning woman finishing up the bathroom and suddenly noticing the empty holder, then the two toothbrushes in the garbage. Did she assume she knocked them into it and simply put them back where she thought they belonged? Or was it some kind of sick joke?? How many times has this happened before???

You'd think this would be enough reason for me to start cleaning the apartment myself, but that thought actually upsets me more than the dirty toothbrush.