Ian McMillan: Reverie that shifts reality of a morning routine

Here’s Ian McMillan going about his morning routine. Ian’s morning routine is very important to him: it sets the day’s train rattling along the right track at the correct speed to the proper destination. If the routine cracks or breaks, then the day’s train is shunted into a siding or ends up in completely the wrong place. It’s like you want go to Batley and you end up in Osmotherley.

Ian McMillan’s at the point in his morning routine when he switches on his battery-powered toothbrush and gives his teeth a good buzzing. Oddly, this buzzing seems to distance him from the world and it gives him time and space to think, to plan the things he’s going to do or the things he’s going to put off doing.

Today he drifts into a deep reverie. He starts to think about the summer, about where he might go for his holidays, about the hotel bathrooms he’ll clean his teeth in. The reverie must be far too deep because his brain forgets to be in charge of some of the rest of Ian’s body. He momentarily loses control of the battery-powered toothbrush and it sprints out of his mouth and he briefly finds himself cleaning the end of his nose.

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He instinctively pulls his hand away as though he’s shattered some law of physics or etiquette or ethics. The universe (or that part of it scientists call Darfield) shifts on its axis and will never be the same again. Ian McMillan returns the toothbrush to his mouth and goes back to thinking about his holidays.

And yet, and yet. Ian McMillan quite enjoyed the short, illicit sensation of the battery-powered toothbrush against the tip of his nose. It felt vaguely, (and how can he put this in a family newspaper?) exciting. It also felt like it was doing his nose good in the same way that brushing your teeth does them good.

Ian McMillan feels like he’s starring in a 1960s Public Information Film. ‘Hello boys and girls! I’m Norman Nosebrush! Don’t forget to always brush the tip of your nose every day to keep your nose shiny and healthy!’ And then the jolly music would swell and a caption would appear telling you how you could join the Norman Nosebrush Club by sending a postal order to a PO Box in Surrey.

Ian McMillan gingerly takes the battery-powered toothbrush out of his mouth. He hesitantly applies it to the end of his nose. He awaits the oncoming mini-explosion of thrilling sensation. The buzzing slowly diminishes in volume as though a moped is moving away through a tunnel. The buzzing splutters, then stops. The battery has died, peacefully at home.

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And now look at Ian McMillan. There’s toothpaste dribbling down his chin onto his dressing gown. He’s frustrated and disappointed. He picks up an ordinary toothbrush, an almost obsolete piece of old technology. He moves it close, then closer, to his nose. No, it won’t be the same. It’ll be like trying to scratch your back with a book once you’ve scratched it with a Kindle. Ian McMillan’s wife knocks on the bathroom door. “Have you done?” she asks. Yes, he’s done.

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