The Haunted Toothbrush

I have a battery operated toothbrush. It vibrates for two minutes, the length of time for a thorough brushing, with a pulse every 30 seconds to prompt you to cover each quadrant of your mouth. The market for such a product is emblematic of our rush-rush culture. We can’t even bother to wash our hands long enough in a pandemic without the help of humming “Happy Birthday.”

One day after brushing my teeth, I heard a strange, buzzing noise coming from the medicine chest. It was my toothbrush spinning in its cylinder holder. It took me a few attempts to turn it off.

It was just the beginning. Sometimes after I use the toothbrush, it resists my attempts to turn it off. Other times, I hear that now familiar buzzing noise and find the toothbrush rotating on its own.

Can it be haunted?

Usually, houses are the haunted entities. They may be built on sites of terrible suffering, such as insane asylums or graveyards. Other times someone dies in the house and can’t rest until he or she receives closure.

In popular culture, objects can be haunted too. Stephen King’s Plymouth Fury Christine may be the most famous example. The TV show Friday the 13th: The Series (unrelated to the Jason movies) is another. Two cousins inherit an antique store and sell off the inventory before they learn that the antiques are cursed. The show consists of the cousins tracking down the objects to lock them up in a vault beneath the store. In real life, the Hope diamond is purported to be a haunted object although that may just be hype.

It makes infinitely more sense for an older object, such as an antique, to be haunted rather than my toothbrush. I am the only one who’s used that toothbrush. It makes no sense for me to haunt myself. Could a manufacturing worker have haunted the toothbrush in some way?

That doesn’t make sense even in my own imagination.

So, I’ll go with the idea that I have a malfunctioning toothbrush. It’s not a romantic as having a haunted toothbrush, but it’s more realistic.