a life in gum

“I had a stick of CareFree gum, but it didn't work. I felt pretty good while I was blowing that bubble, but as soon as the gum lost its flavor, I was back to pondering my mortality.” Mitch Hedberg

having grown up with a smoker for a father

i have most certainly inhaled my fair share of second-hand

so i never fell for the allure of big tobacco & the

kool kids

still, there have been parts in my life where i have found myself

chewing---

i must admit,

large quantities of gum

have passed through my life in spurts

leaving holes of gumless moments---

the furthest back i remember chomping on

big red---

dad would drive to a gas station & i’d always ask for a

pack

if i remember correctly,

the packs always had an odd number of sticks,

still,

all covered in sugar, my teeth would have completely rotted out of my head

if i continued big red until this present day---

i don’t remember any special visual ad that struck me

which might have made me invest so much time & effort into its chewing

but without squinting my eyes to remember

that theme song is still there

right behind my retinas

“longer with big red---that big red freshness lasts right through it---

your fresh breath goes on and on

while you chew it...etc.”

advertisers are as close to any concept of
”satan” that could truly pass in this ephemeral life

 

little league will force any kid to stuff big league chew in your mouth

until all your friends start doing the real stuff

& maybe you decide that you don’t want your face to rot off because

you fill your mouth with dripping wet

excrement & then

promptly spit it out afterward

 

uck.

 

there were the days where my idiot best-friend & i would try to see how much

cinnamon bubble tape we could shove in our mouths before it burned so much

we had to spit it out---

then, of course, they came up with the

bubble puck, which

was nothing more than just one huge hunk of gum the size of a

hockey puck,

so of course, we just shoved that whole thing in our mouths

trying to cram another in, and alas, to no avail,

we would promptly spit it out as well

 

i can’t remember when i wised up to the fact that continued chewing of

sugar gum

would take all my teeth,

but i did---

and so the other spurts of gum chewing throughout has been filled with the

sugarlesses---

and of course,

they are going to give you

cancer.