According to my research (which is to say absolutely no research at all), at some point restaurants around the globe started giving out individually-wrapped red and white breath mints. At that time, my understanding of breath mints was that they tasted vaguely like gin-soaked dog crap but masked the smell of your breath, which smelled vaguely like garlic-soaked dog crap. This didn't make a whole lot of sense to me, as if you needed your breath to smell nice after leaving the restaurant you probably needed your breath to smell nice before entering the restaurant. It would only make sense if the food smelled and tasted like garlic-soaked dog crap. But last time I checked, McDonald's never gave out any mints.

Then I started seeing advertisements for breath mints. That made more sense, though still not a great deal of sense. I assume the target market is people who hate the taste of mouthwash and don't realize that breath mints will taste just as bad. Or maybe there are people who salivate garlic-soaked dog crap and have to pop in one of those mints every couple of minutes. At least that's how my cousin describes her ex-boyfriend to me.

But then came the truly perplexing part: mint flavored toothpaste, mint flavored candies, and probably mint flavored edible lingerie. This implied that there were people out there who actually liked the taste of breath mints. Even the toothpaste at the dentist's office is mint flavored now, and I think I saw some mint flavored children's medicine at one point.

The worst part of this: Strawberry flavored toothpaste doesn't taste like strawberries. Apple flavored candy doesn't taste like apples. Chocolate flavored edible lingerie doesn't taste like chocolate. ...Or so I heard. But all the mint flavored stuff? You'd better believe it tastes like mint.

There's even mint ice cream. Clearly, it is far too late to thwart the mint menace entirely, but we might still be able to contain its wrath. I propose a Mintiness Scale. All products that could conceivably taste like mint must be graded on the Mintiness Scale. It goes from 0 to 10. 0 is not minty at all, 10 makes your entire face numb for years. There's also the Mint Tax to consider.

Anyway, try the strawberry flavored toothpaste instead. It tastes more like the tears of orphans than strawberries, but at least it isn't mint.