How to Celebrate National Fresh Breath Day

Spend the day fretting over your breath. Is it fresh? Is it clean? Does it offend in any way? Cup your hand to your mouth. Huff a bit. Take a sniff. What does your breath smell like? Coffee, cigarettes, beer, toothpaste? What was the last thing you ate? When was the last time you ate? Where are you, exactly?

Realize that you’re trapped in a small room with no windows or visible doors, the only source of illumination a single, bare light bulb hanging from the ceiling. Immediately below the bulb stands a stone pedestal upon which rests a shiny red button. Approach the pedestal.

The red button glints and gleams in the dim light. Something about the button repulses you – a fleshy quality, like a pimple about to burst. But, that’s nonsense. It’s just a button. A button you’d very much like to press.

Press the button.

---

Heads Up – Narrative Days

You may notice today’s post is a bit of a departure from our typical bad-advice format. Starting now, some of our National Days will include elements of an interlocking narrative. We hope you’ll stay tuned to find out what happens next.

Fair warning, though: narrative days will be interspersed throughout the month. Some posts will have nothing to do with the narrative. It’ll be a surprise!

However, all posts will be collected in our upcoming book releasing this week. Once the book is out, you’ll be able to read everything at once and in order. Bonus: We’ll probably collect all narrative days into a post at the end of the month.

Let us know what you think!

Links & Learning

Bad breath appears to be a major concern for lots of folks.

• 17 Things You Never Knew About Bad Breath – BuzzFeed
• How to Tell if You Have Bad Breath – wikiHow
• 11 Ways to Fight Bad Breath Naturally – EverydayHealth
• 15 Ways to Make Your Breath Smell Good All the Time – Cosmopolitan
• 6 Ways to Tell Someone They Have Bad Breath – National Breath Center

Red Buttons are a familiar trope and an Academy Award-winning actor and comedian.

• Big Red Button – TV Tropes
• Big Red Button Quotes – TV Tropes
• Biography of Red Buttons – Biography
• Comedian Red Buttons Dies at 87 – NYTimes
• Red Buttons obituary – The Guardian

Sharing is Caring

Know someone with bad breath? In keeping with this month’s challenge, we’ve created these handy citations for you to email, post, or print and hand out should the need arise:

---

Wonder what happens next? Follow the FMTCD blog and receive an email notification each time a new post goes live…