brush your teeth

and brush them well. Brush them twice a day. Don't forget to floss. And don't skip out on the dentist for a year and a half just because you didn't get any cavities for the first 20-something years of your life.

You know why? Because if you don't you're gonna end up with 5 cavities (4 in your wisdom teeth, which pretty much finished growing in 2 years ago) It gets worse when you find out you shouldn't have put so much trust in your orthodontist when he pulled out your second set of bicuspids when your mouth had enough room for them. It turns out that it's better practice to pull out a set (of 4) molars because you have 3 full sets including the wisdom teeth. And when you pull out the bicuspids you can develop some weird biting problems which may lead to jaw popping and grinding at an older age.

And if it wasn't bad enough, you find out 2 months after you get the cavities filled that one of them was so deep that repairing it irritated the nerve and to stop the numbing pain of drinking liquids that has recently developed, you have two choices, pull the tooth or get a root canal. The root canal is very expensive and actually requires 4 separate dental appointments, but if you pull one tooth, you're probably going to have to pull the corresponding tooth on the other jaw since there will be nowhere to bite down on when it is gone.

Brush your teeth or you'll end up like me having to pay several hundred dollars even with insurance to have this repaired.