Extremities

Products Which Are Better If They Are "Extreme"

- Deodorant. I use Right Guard Extreme Sport Stick, and its extremeness is greatly appreciated by me and everyone near me.

- Toothpaste. Extreme Herbal Mint Crest Toothpaste Plus Whitening is pleasantly abrasive, bracingly minty and wonderfully foamy, with good mouth feel. Overall, I'd say it's the only oral hygiene product deserving of the "extreme" label.

- Sports videos. DVDs depicting motorcycling, skateboarding and other dangerous acts are invariably more enjoyable if they've been designated as "extreme" by the makers. The explanation is simple: in this application, "extreme" = "with crashing."


Products Which Are Not As Good in "Extreme" Form

- Fajitas. Fajitas are a fairly straightforward entree, really - just meat and peppers in a noisy skillet with a pile of flour disks to enclose them. Extremeness is therefore unwarranted, and adds no real benefit.

- Mouthwash. Realizing that I've already praised Extreme Toothpaste elsewhere on this list, I nonetheless feel extremeness in mouthwash to be a negative trait. My opinion is that mouthwash is something that was plenty extreme already, and when brigands like the Listerine corporation go trying to extreme it up further in search of a quick buck, they succeed only in causing customers pain, as in the kind of pain you feel when the flesh from inside your cheeks is chemically bubbled right off and hastily rinsed down the sink drain, pursued immediately by yowls of pain and discomfort. Extreme Discomfort.

- Ceiling tiles. I haven't yet seen ceiling tiles being marketed as Extreme Ceiling Tiles, but I expect that when I do I will be filled with confusion and distrust. Same goes for voicemail.


Products Which May or May Not Be Improved by Being Made Extreme (further research needed)

- Musical genres. "Extreme Opera" really sounds like something I'd be interested in, but many other imaginable varieties of music, such as "Extreme Light Rock" or "Extreme Ska" strike me as somewhat contrived or upsetting, or both.

- Carbonated beverages. (See "Mouthwash," above.)

- Weather. I'll have to admit, when I hear the TV weatherman warning of incoming "extreme" weather, I get a little excited. I know there's a risk of losing a roof shingle or two, and possibly some minor flooding in the back yard, but it's been pretty quiet around here for a while, and I could use a nice round of being blown across the street in a torrential monsoon, grasping my wife's rain-slicked forearm tightly and screaming into the gale, "WOW, HONEY! IS THIS WEATHER EXTREME OR WHAT?!!"