Scratched DVDs and the End of the World

As a parent, I want my kids to have a better life than I had. I want them to be able to enjoy activities we couldn't afford, make memories we didn't make and have some of the things I wanted but never had. For the most part, in the 9 years we've had this parenting gig, we've succeeded. Granted, we've never taken the kids to Disneyland (Don Diego feels especially ripped off in this arena), Mademoiselle still needs Fluttershy to complete her My Little Pony collection and Poquito Tito suffers all the injustices of hand me down everything. But still they are blessed with waaaaay more than the Boy or I ever had. Which is why it makes me almost unbearably twitchy when they don't.take.care.of.their.stuff!!! As parents we feel such gratitude when friends and family members give gifts to our children. And we feel unspeakable frustration when we see those gifts carelessly lying around. One of the most commonly abused items in our home are movies and video games. One comes out to put a different one in and the replaced item gets set down somewhere to collect dust and get scratched. For this reason, this pin shot a glimmer of hope into my heart

http://thehandmadedress.blogspot.com/2008/09/do-you-suffer-from-scrached-dvds_27.html?m=1

Our friends at The Handmade Dress boasts that some children's Crest toothpaste, warm water and a soft cloth can solve all of our scratched disc woes, no matter how abused. The pin says it works on DVDs as well as Wii games so I tried it on both. First, the DVD. I'm not sure how this happened, clearly the DVD player had some dirt or something in it because our Planes DVD has perfect circular scratches in it. Can you see them?

I used one of the 12 million sample sized tubes of kid's toothpaste we've gotten from the dentist (according to the pin is HAS to be kid's toothpaste)

And I squirted some on the damaged disc

I rubbed it around the disc gently with my fingers until the whole thing was coated

Then I gently rinsed the toothpaste off with warm water and dried it with a lint-free super soft cloth

I still saw the scratches but knew that obviously the function of the toothpaste is to fill the little gaps where the scratches are. So we put the movie in the DVD player with bated breath and....it skipped. And paused. And Poquito Tito lost his mind. (This isn't quite typical, I think he's not feeling well) Weeping, wailing an gnashing of teeth feels like a huge understatement to describe the fit he threw because he couldn't watch Dusty Crophopper. So not only did this pin NOT work, it also ended in a temper tantrum that put Poquito Tito in time out! Oh the humanity! I realllllly wish this pin had worked. I tried it on a Wii game as well with similar non-results. Have you ever tried this toothpaste trick? Did it work for you?