The Worst You Can Do Is Harm

Scent of Lime
The Long Winters
The Worst You Can Do Is Harm
Barsuk : 2002
[Listen] [Buy]

Blue Diamonds
The Long Winters
When I Pretend to Fall
Barsuk : 2003
[Listen] [Buy]

Cinnamon
The Long Winters
When I Pretend to Fall
Barsuk : 2003
[Listen] [Buy]

Copernicus
The Long Winters
The Worst You Can Do Is Harm
Barsuk : 2002
[Listen] [Buy]

Teaspoon
The Long Winters
Putting the Days to Bed
Barsuk : 2006
[Listen] [Buy]

Shapes
The Long Winters
When I Pretend to Fall
Barsuk : 2003
[Listen] [Buy]

Blanket Hog
The Long Winters
When I Pretend to Fall
Barsuk : 2003
[Listen] [Buy]

Honest
The Long Winters
Putting the Days to Bed
Barsuk : 2006
[Listen] [Buy]

Carparts
The Long Winters
The Worst You Can Do Is Harm
Barsuk : 2002
[Listen] [Buy]

Clothespins. Noodles. Pen caps. Yarn. My Beckpack was noted for its collection of oddities, and I could only hope as I rummaged through its pockets that somewhere in my travels I had stumbled upon some gum or Lifesavers, anything to bring a minty light to my sweltering stank garlic pit of a mouth.

See, her name was _____ _______, and I walked her out to her bus every day. She had squinty blue eyes, a big bracey smile, and curly blonde hair that bounced when she walked. She was short, kind of skinny, and if her face were a car, it would be a Geo Tracker. Or maybe an AMC Gremlin.

But none of this matters to the shy and timid sophomore, looking foreword to the end of each day when the hug he shares with his newfound companion carries him aloft to the heights rabid daydreamery. If she only knew what she could do to me with just one smile.

There would be no joy in Royville if a mint could not be found, for on this day his pizza lay consumed and garlic drowned.

There was no way I could greet her with my breath so crass. Especially not at the pre-hands holding stage, where a blackhead on your third grade class picture could spell disaster, let alone swampmouth. Broken Ruler. Candy bar. Compass. Finally, a pocket in the Beckpack revealed treasure: a travel tube of Colgate Toothpaste, at which point the following though process is likely to have occurred:

Oh wow! Nothing else cleans mouths like toothpaste! If it did, we’d be using it!

Hold on a second there chief. It’s not like you can brush right here in the middle of class.

No, but I can put a dab in my mouth and swish it around.

Yeah. Then what? Spit in the trash can?

Then I can just swallow it! Breath fresh, problem solved!

But you’re not supposed to swallow toothpaste, right? Doesn’t it say so right on the tube?

Wow. You’re right, I guess it does. Still, how poisonous could it be if you’re supposed to put it in your mouth? Three times a day?

Well, I mean. I don’t know…

And it’s not like I’m going to be eating the whole tube. It’s just one little dollop.

I guess you’re right.

Damn right I’m right.

Okay, let’s go for it.

On three.

One

Two

Who knew it would taste so good? We taste toothpaste every night and day (if we are good little children of the ADA), but I hadn’t realized the satisfaction I was denying myself, the rush that lay just beyond the edge of my tongue. And fresh my breath was as ____ and I walked to her bus, smiling, making small talk, and hugging before she boarded, leaving me to float numbly the long mile of sidewalks that led home.

Soon I found myself sitting with her on the band bus for away games, sharing shoulders, folded hands, awkward smiles. And for every meeting, another dollop of toothpaste to give the confidence I needed.

One day my lab partner caught me sneaking my daily refresher. “Isn’t it bad to eat toothpaste?” I eat it all the time, I said. “I’m pretty sure it tells you not to right on the tube.”

Damn, she’d caught me! To claim ignorance would make me look bumbling and hapless. I did the only thing I could do to save face: I ate the rest of the tube, right then and there. As I escorted my friend to her bus I beamed triumphant, my chest out and my head high with the knowledge that I had the freshest breath of ________ _______________ High School.

The next morning, at around 3 am, I woke up to a stabbing pain that felt like a muscle cramp happening with my internal organs. Reflexively I tired stretching, rolling around, and moaning, none of which helped. Eventually, sweating and tired, I woke my parents up and we took a trip to the ER, where they asked me:

Have you eaten anything out of the ordinary?

And struggling to remember the previous day, the best I could offer was “I had nachos at the football game…”. Because toothpaste was not a food per se, it did not occur to me as a possible answer to the question. A blue gown, an x-ray, and a shot in the ass later, I was sent home without any definitive answer to my mysterious condition. Luckily, the pain didn't came back.

What did this mean for _____ and I? Well, I realized in the next couple days that the toothpaste could have been the cause of my health troubles, but I was too embarrassed to tell anyone. And while this meant no more fresh breath for our meetings, it turned out to be of little consequence. I asked her out on Halloween, and she turned me down, keywords being “such a good friend”, “just got out of a relationship”, and “not ready”. She was ready enough for ____ _______, the bench warming senior she started dating that weekend. But hey, that’s part of learning and growing up.

Some lessons come hard. Like why you shouldn’t eat toothpaste. Apparently, as explained by my high school chemistry teacher, the fluoride ions in the toothpaste end up being absorbed by the blood, where they bond with calcium and form a precipitate, which is filtered by the kidneys, and can form kidney stones.
Now you might be asking at this point, if you’re still reading, what in the name of mooky-foo does this have to do with The Long Winters?

Well, every other year or so when I find myself staring at the ceiling, body melting in relief as morphine muffles the kidney stone siren signals shooting at my brain, I smile, and think back to high school. Remembering how stupid I was, how excited and naive I was, and how much fun I had that I didn’t even realize I was having. I think about how if I met that kid today, toothpaste in hand, I’d have to slap him on the shoulder and laugh.

Maybe it’s just the painkillers, but it’s that silent, smiling, knowing, nodding reflective mood on the perfectly imperfect past that captures what I love best about The Long Winters.

At their finest, they produce damn catchy tunes whose narrators are human in only the best ways: flawed but redeemable, shifty but honest, sad but smiling. As I approach the quarter century mark, I find myself in this reflective mood often, and there I find the Long Winters in my ears, a hand on my shoulder, a knowingly amused face nodding in agreement.