From the time I was knee-high as a grasshopper we had always used Close Up Red as toothpaste. That was what my siblings and I grew up with. My mum never tried another. Our tongue never tasted other. Red was it.

University days after, NYSC days after, marriage after, children after, decades after, Red has been it. I think it’s only my brother that made a switch to Colgate. Just thinking about it now, I should ask him why he changed and at what point he changed. But I could easily make a guess why.

Anyway, I was in the supermarket one fateful day to pick a few things for the house and toothpaste was one of the items needed. I didn’t find Red. Very unusual. I searched and didn’t find. I went to the sales person and asked and she said they ran out of stock. I had picked all other things I needed save toothpaste. I turned my head sideways for some seconds, I checked other variations they had, I picked them up and turned them over one after the other. I thought. I reconsidered. I contemplated. Then I decided. I picked the next variation of it, I picked Herbal. Come on, it’s the same product, isn’t it?

How many times do we do that with different things in our lives? I’m getting ahead of myself.

The following morning, my wife jolted me from the bathroom, “Olami! What is this?”

I lifted my head to see her poke hers out from the bathroom.

“What?”

“What kind of toothpaste is this?” She asked with foam in her mouth.

“Close Up.”

“It’s not Red!” She spat it out.

“Apparently.”

“Why didn’t you buy Red?”

“Because they didn’t have. It’s out of stock.”

“Who didn’t have? Out of stock in all shops or in shop A.”

“Shop A didn’t have.” I continued what I was doing. Of course I had no proof other shops didn’t have.

“Did you check other shops? Like shops B, C, D, E, F, G, H I J K L M N O…” She wouldn’t let up.

“Baby!”

“Come and use it before you Babied me!”

“But it’s still Close Up now!”

“But it’s not Red!”

She mumbled other things I didn’t hear and didn’t bother to hear.

I didn’t find Red in the place I thought and expected to find it, that’s why I chose Herbal. I was lazy to make some five minutes’ drive to check shops B or C or D for Red. I didn’t, so I chose Herbal. The problem isn’t that the manufacturer failed to supply Red into the market. I was the one who didn’t make effort to check other places. It wasn’t that the salesperson said other shops didn’t have Red, I was the one who chose Herbal.

What’s your Red that you have compromised for Herbal? What are you not making effort to get that you are settling for less. Of course, there are those who like Herbal, those who use Herbal, those who would pick Herbal any day over Red. I mean, that’s why it’s in the market, it has its customers. But that’s not you, and you know. Are you settling just because of ‘a five minutes’ drive’ to get your Red? Are you reviewing, reconsidering, deliberating, ruminating, turning other variations over and over, justifying, just because you wouldn’t try some other place?

Herbal may be available, it doesn’t mean Red isn’t obtainable.

And if you bring Herbal home, my wife has this to say, “But it’s not Red!”

I was in the bathroom the next day. I was about picking my toothbrush and then I saw Red. I don’t know what my wife did with my Herbal but it was no longer there.

I saw Red. And I used Red.