Last week I purchased an empty bottle of mouthwash.

It arrived from eBay very well wrapped and protected with paper and another type of paper in a ziplock bag surrounded by bubble wrap, in a box. It was very inexpensive, mostly because it’s an empty bottle of mouthwash.

I am writing a series of short essays about the home my grandparents lived in; they bought the house in 1949 and lived there for over 60 years. I knew the house well because we lived in an duplex at the other end of the block and visited at least once a week, most often on Sundays after church. I only lived in my grandparents’ house for one week, the summer my mom had to leave town for a national teacher’s conference.

I was seventeen. My grandmother thought it would be most appropriate for me to sleep in my mother’s old room to experience what it was like for her, sleeping in the 1950’s. All I knew about my mother’s childhood room was that, growing up, she hid Ray Bradbury and Issac Asimov books under her pillow - so during that week, I did the same (I believe it was “I Robot”), - just for authenticity.

I had a summer job singing at the amusement park; I had to be at work by 10AM and didn’t get back until about 9PM, so out of respect I got up early each day to get ready and have breakfast with my grandparents every morning.

Anyway, I bought an empty bottle of mouthwash last week from eBay.

I should say that the bottle is “almost” empty, as it does have a little bit of liquid still in it.

I am not a linguist, either professionally or as a focused hobby, but I always believed myself to be familiar with common prefixes and suffixes. For instance, I thought that “sol” referred to the sun in some way.

It does as a prefix, but as a suffix, sol refers not to “solar” but “solution”, as in AEROSOL, or the product names Pine-Sol™(pine solution), or Lysol™ (the LY refers to the Greek word “lysis” meaning “to break down or dissolve”), or the curious American mouthwash named “Astring-O-Sol™”(astringent solution?) - created in the 1920’s to compete with the Listerine™ brand. Rather than Listerine’s “Fires of Sterilization” flavor, Astring-O-Sol contained zinc chloride and the oils of myrrh and wintergreen.

The gimmick was that Astring-O-Sol was highly concentrated, even somewhat dangerously so: potent enough that just three drops in six ounces of water created an potion powerful enough to deliver fresh breath for a full day. That’s how it could be marketed as a clear value, since its smaller packaging allowed more product to be shipped for less money and a bottle would last longer than its competitors due to the fact it was being emptied by only three drops each day.

My grandparent’s bathroom was far more of a time machine than my mother’s old bedroom. The tile was vintage, the sink was tiny and low with a sturdy little faucet, and there were products I had never heard of or seen before in the cabinet behind the mirror: soaps and creams and my grandfather’s depilatory powder (which smelled like rotten eggs) and after shave (which smelled like, well, Grandpa) and a bottle of Astring-O-Sol, which I did sample during that summer week in their house.

However, being in a hurry, and as there was not a cup in the bathroom, I did not dilute it, but instead sprinkled three drops directly onto my tongue. Those familiar with the effects of wasabi can extrapolate what happened next - a moment of calm, then curiosity, then complete and total panic where I forced my head as far as it would go into the tiny sink, desperately trying to calculate an angle that might allow a few drops of water to get into my mouth. And yes, the freshness did last all day long.

Anyway, they don’t sell that stuff anymore in most stores, so I bought an empty bottle, exactly like the one from that bathroom. When I think about my grandparent’s house, it’s not so much architectural details as the experience of being there, and that moment was one of my clearest (if not exactly fondest) memories.

My family watched me unwrap it, which took a while, but did not immediately comment when they saw what it was.

“Is that old mouthwash?” my wife finally asked.

“Yeah.” I replied. “It’s for research.”

I was surprised that my answer was good enough for both of them. I was all ready to impress them with the fact that one just like it is in the Smithsonian.

https://www.si.edu/object/astring-o-sol-mouthwash-and-gargle%3Anmah_1218694