Picking your teeth with your fingers is better than picking your teeth with a toothpick.

An amusing debate to be sure.Health -You say that 25% of men and women do not wash their hands after using the bathroom, this leaves 75% that still do wash their hands so your argument applies to the minority while my argument still applies to the majority. All of your statistics show a trend in the minority of people while mine applies to the majority leaving the logic sound. However even among these numbers you yourself narrowed it down to two hand washings a day, this my good sir is still two times more than a toothpick has ever been washed. So my argument stands. Scenario - There are certain aspects of living that are not pretty. Is vomiting nice? Is pooping socially acceptable? What if you have a particularly akward wegie? Whenever these unpleasentries occur, which they do and frequently, one usually will go to the bathroom in order to resolve it. That is what bathrooms are for. If you saw a man adjusting his pants or coming out of a stinky stall one does not think poorly of the person but rather thinks "poor person" since these things are unavoidable. Same goes for picking your teeth, if someone spies you picking your teeth in the bathroom they will not think twice about it. Its the bathroom, a place where people go in order to fix themselves up. Ease of Access/Cost - My esteemed opponent avoids my argument. I have already pointed out and given an article in support of the fact that some resaraunts do not give out tooth picks anymore. Fast food restaraunts certaintly don't and many places such as Chiles or Applebees do not either. And if you cannot come by a toothpick then you are more inclined to use your fingers. Its convinient. Instead my opponent switches to saying you can use a napkin in order to pick your teeth which is another argument entirely. A napkin is not a toothpick, in fact picking your teeth with a napkin would be the same as using your fingers just covered in a napkin. Also he never addressed the cost of supplying your own toothpicks. If you never want to use your fingers and fast food and some dine-in restaraunts do not supply you with toothpicks you must supply them yourself, this argument also stands as was presented earlier since no effort to refute it was presented. Dangerous - "From 1979 to 1982, an estimated 8,176 toothpick-related injuries occurred yearly" [sic] [1] From this statistic supplied by The Journal of the American Medical Association shows that in a given three year stretch there were 24,528 toothpick related injuries. As to how these injuries occur that is not what I am here to debate. Simply they do occur and are dangerous. The Journal of the American Medical Association says that they should be kept out of reach of children. [1] No such warning has been given about people's fingers. "There is no way of ingesting a toothpick." That simply is false. There is a way of ingesting a toothpick, you put it in your mouth and accidently swallow. In fact toothpicks are more likely to be injested than say a sock or a pencil because they are primarily used within the mouth. Mouths are used for ingesting things. Saying there is no way of ingesting a toothpick is like saying there is no way to injest gum or toothpaste, all things which go into your mouth but are supposed to come out but we also know this to be false. Like I said, it is not my place to say how such ridiculous injuries occur, all I am here to say is that they do occur... 8,176 times a year. That sounds pretty dangerous to me. Name - I already conceded the point that toothpicks were created in order to pick teeth however that does not mean they are the best thing for the job. Automated carwashes were invented to wash cars, its right there in the name, but that doesn't mean that it does it better than washing it by hand. Sometimes doing things by hand, or by finger, are just better despite the fact that something has been invented to counter it. Clumsy - My opponent also failed to address this argument, toothpicks are clumsy. They are not as easy to use as the tips of your finger. Perhaps he will touch on this point next round since he forgot it last round. Or perhaps he evaded it purposely because of its validity. I look forward to the final round. [1] http://jama.ama-assn.org...