I take a ridiculous amount of time to brush my teeth these days.

Not only these days, too, but for years now, I will enter the bathroom, and emerge perhaps ten minutes later. What am I actually doing in there that takes so long?

Here's the answer: nothing. Absolutely nothing. I start of fine: toothpaste squeezed out in a small pea-sized ball on my mangy brush. Then: I stick the brush in my mouth- no problems there. And soon after, something happens, something I can't stop from happening. I lose focus inexplicably, and my mind wanders.

I start imagining programming a robot that can navigate a car through traffic, and the legal requirements that would hinder its production, or about what it would be like to be the only survivor in an apocalypse, at the things I could later steal. The only thing I don't actually consider is the activity I am currently engaged in.

As a result, I just stand there aimlessly, or pace around sometimes, brush in my mouth, doing nothing. I like to think that the toothpaste's mere presence in my mouth helps to clean my teeth, and that years of doing this has left them super tough and able to absorb toothpaste unusually well. I mean, they are kinda white...

If I were to think up a genius invention which would revolutionise the modern world, I can almost guarantee it would happen during this time, when I am supposedly cleaning my teeth.

And then I snap back, realising that eleven minutes has passed (I often stroll by my Mac en route), and thankful that nobody has seen this awkwardly comical display.