Sometimes, I wish I could have been born a character in a comic strip — where life seldom throws you curveballs as you attempt to carry out the most daunting of tasks.

Case in point: Purchasing a needed tube of toothpaste.

In the comics, my doppelgänger would simply grab a box labeled “TOOTHPASTE” — likely printed in Comic Sans — and the arduous chore would be completed lickety-split.

(If the cartoonist wanted to be clever, the box would read “TOOFPASTE.”)

However, in real life — or as close to reality as I choose to find myself living — picking the proper tube opened a rabbit hole from which digging myself out seemed improbable.

I thought I knew what I was doing (always a bad sign) as I ventured assuredly down the toothpaste aisle of the big blue box store. My confidence was shattered almost immediately, as before me were arrayed more than a dozen varieties of the brand I was tasked with buying.

I could select the type promising “intensive enamel repair,” or the one for “sensitive teeth and cavity prevention.”

Or “specialized enamel protection” that “rebuilds, restores, refreshes,” or an “Active Shield” that not only “builds enamel resistance,” but claims one of its benefits is “cavity and erosion protection.”

Wait … why would I want to protect my cavities and erosion? Seems counter-productive, or counterintuitive, or counter-something.

No time to chew on that though, since I had moved onto “rapid relief and long-lasting protection” — which seemed like a winner, until I saw the next variety that hyped its “24/7 sensitivity protection.”

Other toothpastes don’t work 24/7? Do they get nights, weekends and holidays off?

That option — and, remember, all these different choices are under the same brand — has a “triple-action cleaning formula,” which I suspect can be defined as brush-rinse-repeat.

At this point, what was needed was getting the most bang for my bucks, until it became clear (as mud, my mother would say) that there were issues with that hope.

First, all these tubes were selling for the same price — whether they had the “#1 Dentist Recommended Brand” inscription on the box or not.

Then there was the matter of which would provide the most bang: The one offering “Full Protection,” or the box one shelf below that promised “Extra Fresh Complete Protection.”

What did that entail, you ask? A toothpaste that took care of “sensitivity/enamel/clean/gums/fresh/plaque/whitening.”

It probably could serve as an adhesive or a base for salad dressing in a pinch, though the box made no such claims.

The mention of “whitening,” though, was an immediate red flag. I’ve seen too many sitcoms where teeth-whitening went horribly wrong and kept the user’s sleep mate awake at night to not to go there.

If I had gone that route, I could have chosen among non-whitening, gentle whitening, whitening, extra whitening and (as promised by a different brand) something called “3D WHITENING” — which apparently requires wearing specialty glasses in order to appreciate its effects.

All I wanted was a tube of toothpaste to bring home that would earn me a checkmark and repair, rebuild, restore and refresh my teeth while building a Fresh Wave of rapid resistance through 24/7, triple-action, dentist-recommended, deep cleaning, enamel-building protection from cavities and erosion … for $6.98, please.

Oh, did I not mention the “Fresh Wave”? At first, I must admit, I thought the box read “French Wave” — but dismissed that notion as silly since what would Truffaut, Godard, Malle and the rest know about Active Shield whitening?

This was “Fresh Wave,” a varietal that also brought about Fresh Breath, although not breath that promised a hint of any of the scents advertised on the other boxes — you know: Arctic Breeze, Alpine Breeze, Fresh Mint, Clean Mint, Cool Mint, or (apparently generic) Mint.

Since I’d been standing in the aisle for a spell, I found myself picturing the factory at Big Toothpaste where tubes were filled along a conveyor belt with just the right combination of additives and attributes to keep the marketing engines humming.

I mean, that had to be how this worked, right? How else would they be able to ensure that the dozen or more varieties would be different from one another?

In the end, I settled on the type “proven to drive minerals deep into the enamel surface to help actively repair acid-weakened areas.” It is non-whitening and Extra Fresh and listed among its ingredients “flavor” — not artificial flavor, or natural flavor, or a combination thereof … just plain-old, everyday flavor.

It sounds like something that would exist in a comic strip.