HowTo:Put the toothpaste back in the tube

Now what the hell am I supposed to do?

Once you grow up and figure out how to put the toothpaste back in the tube nothing else really matters. As the good book says, it's all downhill from there. Because putting the toothpaste back in the tube is usually the most rewarding experience of a person's life. So grab a pen, make notes, and get ready to amaze your friends.

And yes, you will get laid.

Step One: Get the toothpaste out of the tube

There are as many ways to get the toothpaste out of the tube as there are grains of sand on all the beaches on the planet. You don't believe me? Here are just a few: Step on the tube, throw the tube against a wall, put the tube under a horse's hoof and whinny, throw the tube up reallll high and watch it plop open when it falls, or just lay the tube on a table and squeeze it with your elbow. You want more? Urge two dogs to play tug-of-war with the tube, cut the tube with a stone age knife, give an bum money to bite the tube, hit the tube with a stone age hammer, tape the tube to a basketball and bounce it, sew the tube into a fat woman and throw cake on the floor. I gotta million of them.

Step Two: Ascertain what you've got

Now you've got an empty tube and lots of toothpaste lying around. You've got skin in the game. It's your moment to shine. Focus. Come on, come on, snap out of it. Focus.

Your friend is waiting.

Step Three:Put the toothpaste back in the tube

Remember the Hubble Telescope? The old-timey space contraption held together by binding wire and spit? It has sent back some of the most important information about the universe since the first cavepeople huddled in the corner of their cave quaking in fear at the ghosts in the sky. Well, when NASA had to man up and repair the Hubble, they sent up a crew of dedicated professional astronauts who'd learned one thing and learned it well: When repairing a delicate and complex machine you do it very very slowly.

That's all you need to know. Use a pen or a stick - or lash a toothpick onto a chopstick - and enlarge the sides of the tube. Just jiggle it around in there and make a large hollow, where the toothpaste will live. But use the stick slowly, as if the entire Hubble mission depended on you.

Once you've got the tube inflated again, grab the toothpick and put some toothpaste on it from your pile of toothpaste. Now put it back in the tube.

That's one way to do it, but, like this article, it's so tedious that it can drive you to howl at the ghosts in the sky. There are quicker ways to put the toothpaste back in the tube.

Step Four:Put the tootpaste back in the tube

Operate on the tube. Pretend you're a famous surgeon, like House or Clooney, or those two heart guys who used to be celebs but then ate themselves to death. Open up an incision in the tube, two inches should do it. No, don't start humping it. Put the toothpaste back in the tube using your finger like a spatula, then sew it up. Be sure to put the cap back on the toothpaste or it just will leak out again and you'll lose your patient.

Or get some dental floss, wrangle the toothpaste, and corral it back in the tube.

Another way, preferred by the French, is to melt the toothpaste into a liquid and pour it back in the tube. Either heat the toothpaste in a pot on the stove, or microwave the goo. Or just leave it in the sun. Then grab your funnel, pour the liqufied toothpaste right into the tube, and you're good to go.

Here's a tip from a reader: When you have your toothpaste good and liguified get a bendy-straw and pretend you're siponing gas from the neighbor's car. Start the suction going, and let the gooey liquid flow back into the tube. Don't get any in your mouth, yech.

Step Five:Put the toothpaste back in the tube

Here's where you can use your pets. Grab your cat or wolf and stick the empty tube deep into its mouth. No, no, the other way, the opening faces forward. Now hold the loose toothpaste right in front of the tube's opening. The pet, who should be hypervenilating by this point, will suction the toothpaste back into the tube like a vacuum cleaner.

Which reminds me. You can actually do this without the cat or wolf by cutting a hole in the back end of the tube and attaching a real vaccum cleaner (or a vaccum cleaner cleaner) - but it's not half as much fun as when you've got your pet huffing and puffing and it's eyes get real wide like in the cartoons.

Or take out your money and hire some high school geek to put the toothpaste back in the tube. Tell him or her that you don't care how long it takes, just that you want it done, and tell them that if it gets back to you in a reasonable amount of time they can expect a big tip and a long massage.

If all else fails, just put the toothpaste back in the tube the conventional way: Cut a hole in the end of the tube and suck it back in. Some people are better at this than others.

Now that your tube is full again

Show it off. Mount the tube on a wooden board and hang it on a wall at home or parade it around the office, or take it on a coming-out tour and show your neighbors. You've done it, a deed more fulfilling than building those fancy ships that sailor wannabees stick in bottles and haul around from fireplace mantel to fireplace mantel. The filled-again tube is like Hollywood glitz and pentacostal rain blended into a pulp, then placed inside a plastic container with a hollow space at the center. A truly thrilling learning curve centering on a slick tube.

We keep our promises

Don't keep your distance. In other words, and last but not least, putting the tootpaste back in the tube will get you laid, as promised at the beginning of this primer.

Try it. Carry the tube with you and show it to members of the opposite or same sex, or both at the same time, and say "I sucked the toothpaste back into this tube".

Bingo!

The end result. Not pretty, but that'll do pig.