The Toothbrush, the Missing Glasses, and the Search for a Nice Man

There are mornings when life feels beautifully organised. And then there are mornings when I leave my apartment on the 14th floor without my glasses and my phone.

This Thursday’s Lunch meeting began exactly where many honest conversations begin: with someone saying, “I’m okay. Just okay.” That someone was me.

Fruitloop greeted me warmly, already carrying the gentle energy of someone who knows the week is almost over. Thursday has that strange personality. It is tired, but hopeful. Close enough to Friday to dream a little.

We talked first about school holidays. Mine are coming only at the beginning of June in Brazil, although the idea of “holiday” currently includes eye surgery, fifteen days without driving, and apparently being banned from cooking like a dangerous criminal. I tried explaining the small membrane growing in my left eye, searching for the English words while Fruitloop patiently translated the medical mystery into something calmer and kinder. Not a cataract, thankfully. Just one of those tiny human maintenance problems life throws at us.

The strange thing is that the surgery almost sounds restful compared to my normal routine.

Because somewhere between education meetings, teacher training, WhatsApp messages at 7 a.m., and trying not to become emotionally attached to my work stress, I have forgotten what “relaxing” actually means.

The Mayor arrived slightly late, wrapped in French weather and technological confusion, testing a new headset with the seriousness of a man launching a spacecraft. He asked whether I was surviving on “the other side of the Atlantic,” which somehow made Brazil sound both glamorous and exhausting at the same time.

And then, as always happens at Lunch, the conversation drifted into places nobody could have predicted.

Fruitloop asked me to describe an ordinary morning in my life. I realised I barely have ordinary mornings anymore. My weekdays are ruled by schedules, obligations, teachers, schools, reports, coordinators, supervisors, and tiny emergencies disguised as normal emails.

But weekends? Ah. Weekends are different.

On Saturdays and Sundays, I make scrambled eggs slowly. I sit on my sofa. Sometimes I simply breathe. It sounds small when written down, but lately those moments feel luxurious, almost rebellious. Like secretly stealing peace back from adulthood.

Still, education work in Brazil carries a heaviness that followed me through the conversation. I spoke about exhausted teachers, overloaded schools, and training sessions where fifty educators sit together looking emotionally sunburnt from the year already. Everyone is tired. Deeply tired. The kind of tired that coffee cannot fix.

And yet nobody at the table treated this tiredness dramatically. That is one of the quiet gifts of Lunch. Difficult things are allowed to exist without becoming tragedies.

Instead, the Mayor immediately tried solving my practical problems with the confidence of a man who believes all crises can be fixed with French fashion.

After I confessed to repeatedly forgetting my phone and glasses, he introduced us to a new French trend: women wearing mobile phones around their necks like jewellery. Apparently somewhere in France there are elegant women walking around with vibrating smartphones hanging from gold chains like emotional support accessories.

Fruitloop and I reacted like two sensible people from countries where this idea would simply become a robbery opportunity.

“Here it’s not going to work,” I said immediately. “They will probably steal your phone.”

Still, the Mayor remained committed to the concept. France, according to him, remains the centre of civilisation, fashion, gastronomy, and apparently toothbrush labour unions.

Which brings us naturally to the toothbrush discussion.

Fruitloop launched the famous “Fruitloop Questions,” the kind of whimsical philosophical nonsense that somehow reveals real truths about people.

“If your toothbrush could talk,” she asked, “what would it say about your morning routine?”

My toothbrush, I decided, would become my motivational coach. It would remind me everything will be okay. It would repeat the same message I keep written on my bathroom mirror: I love myself. Everything will be nice.

The Mayor’s toothbrush, meanwhile, turned out to be extremely French.

Highly unionised. Concerned about retirement. Deeply invested in meal quality and working conditions. Curious about whether ingredients came from local farmers’ markets instead of cheap supermarkets. Essentially, his toothbrush sounded like a Parisian intellectual trapped inside dental equipment.

Fruitloop’s toothbrush, sadly, lives under constant attack from her son, who repeatedly knocks the toothbrush holder into the sink like a tiny domestic hurricane. Somewhere in South Africa, a family of toothbrushes is apparently filing daily workplace safety complaints.

The sock conversation became even stranger.

The Mayor gave a full sociological analysis of sock oppression, explaining that identical socks suffer identity crises and dream of liberation from boring factory-made conformity. According to him, missing socks are not accidents. They are revolutionaries escaping captivity.

Honestly, by this stage, nobody questioned anything anymore.

Not even the idea that vegetables should compete in the Olympics.

I chose potatoes to win every race because potatoes, like Brazilians, are versatile survivors. Fruitloop supported the theory scientifically by explaining how potatoes escape from cupboards by rolling dramatically across kitchens. The Mayor, however, selected runner beans because “it’s in the name.” This logic was accepted immediately by the entire group.

Somewhere between dirty school socks, rolling potatoes, and philosophical toothbrushes, we also somehow discussed my love life.

Or rather, the absence of one.

I admitted I recently told my psychologist that maybe I need more than just work in my life. Maybe I need cinema dates. Conversations. A boyfriend. Or at least someone who doesn’t message me about school administration before 9 a.m.

The Mayor warned me that boyfriends create “extra work,” speaking with the exhausted authority of a married man who has clearly seen things. Fruitloop and the Mayor then volunteered themselves as unofficial international matchmakers, discussing the possibility of launching romantic advertising campaigns for me across Europe like I was a cultural exchange programme.

And somehow, instead of feeling embarrassing, it felt warm.

That is the strange magic of these lunches.

Nobody speaks perfect English. Nobody has a perfect life. We all forget things. We all get tired. We all carry little private worries into the conversation like bags we hoped nobody would notice.

But then somebody asks what a sock might feel.

And suddenly life becomes lighter again.

Maybe that is what creative play in daily life actually means.

Not escaping responsibility completely. Just loosening its grip for an hour. Letting imagination sit beside exhaustion at the table. Allowing humour to gently interrupt stress before it hardens into something heavier.

Or maybe, as the Mayor would probably say, life is simply easier when your toothbrush understands French labour law and your potatoes know when to run.