do your orals!

(a follow-up to http://nakedmeadow.blogspot.com/2008/05/bad-breath.html)

You've got bad breath.
Maybe a week ago your mouth mists evoked fragrant frangipani...or maybe you've had it for years.
Maybe you eat more garlic than you used to, because garlic breath is preferable to ass breath.
Maybe you once spent months filling the pockets of predatory corporate America by purchasing something called "breath pills".
Maybe you haven't left the house since 2002 without this thought gnawing away in some corner of your brain - do i have breath like that mangy, frightening, two-weeks-from-death dog i met when i was five?
As though it's not hard enough to find love in this uncaring world. Now you've gotta deal with this.
I've been there.
So have plumbers, presidents, and porn stars.
So have maharajahs, minions, and midwives.
So has the most attractive woman i've ever kissed.
Why do we suffer this pointless indignity?? How can evolution give us opposable thumbs and excessively-fatty mammary glands, but render us such a halitosis hash elsewhere? I won't state the more obvious reasons, all you smokers and analingists...but here's what i've learned (and what the Mayo Clinic tells us).
FOOD
Bad breath bacteria are caused by the breakdown of all those particles that chewing leaves in our traps and yaps. Plus broken-down food in the bloodstream - even at that stage, apparently it don't smell so good. What can you do? Try mouthwash after every meal (salt water will do).
DRY MOUTH
Saliva is a natural rinse for all those food particles, but we don't self-rinse much during sleep. Hence, morning breath (a condition exacerbated by sleeping with mouth open). Alcohol-based mouthwash may also contribute to dry mouth, ironically. Alcohol also contributes to occasionally sleeping with one's mouth open, i hear...
TONSIL STONES
No, not the tribute band. Did you ever snort a certain way, and feel a calcium-like nugget emerge from somewhere in your noggin passages? They're loaded with bacteria, and the unknown presence of one of these can be "game over" for your love life. You can keep your tonsils clean with cotton swabs or bobby-pins (no, really...do an internet search). Or an electric mouth irrigator. Or both. In case sticking a bobby-pin into your internal cavities (or any cavity, really) seems questionable, yes, the how-to guide mentions bleeding numerous times. So let's be careful out (er, in) there.
MEDICATIONS
Some contribute to dry mouth. Others just release chemical funk into your innards. Chemical Funk, on tour with the Tonsil Stones!
OTHER
Postnasal drip, stomach acid reflux, and disease. Many of us really are just dying from the inside out...
But take heart, and learn what it took me years of trial and error to discover...
WROB'S ORAL REGIMEN
1 - Brush your teeth. Then your gums. Then the insides of your cheeks. Obvious? Yes. So why didn't YOU think of it?
2 - Floss. Don't forget to go behind your back molars. Why did no dentist ever suggest this to me?
3 - Gargle and tongue-scrape. Go back to front with the hard side, the front to back with the bristles. You can find scrapers in any pharmacy. They suggest getting a new one every couple months, but the first one i bought has lasted years (some call that "ewwww", i call it valewwww). For mouthwash, try hydrogen peroxide, mixed with water. It doesn't give you dry mouth, and the price helps you "stick it to the man" (as retribution for all those #@*&ing breath pills). If your gag reflex makes it hard to scrape the back of your tongue, try taking a mouthful of water when you get to the back on your bristle run, then continuing.
All done?
Good. Now come over here and pucker.