Recently I had a craving for some gum, something I rarely chew since it hurts my jaws. While at the grocery store waiting to check out I was standing next to the point of purchase display where all the trashy magazines, batteries and snack items you really don’t need were. Then I saw them there deadsquare in the middle. Colors of red, blue, green, and white. It was the gum section…a WHOLE section for gum.
As I browsed I saw spearmint gum, peppermint gum, cinnamon gum, grape gum, orange gum, trpoical frut gum, whitening gum, sugar free gum and so much more gum.
When I was a kid, the gum chewing options were limited to just a handful, and they were all pretty much the same. There was Hubba Bubba, Bubble Yum, Bubbalicious... you get the idea. But there was also Chicklets, which were pretty cool, but you had to eat a whole pack, just to get a decent bubble. There was also Fruit Stripes. Also very colorful with flavored sticks of gum, but the flavor lasted maybe five minutes and that was if you were lucky.
My personal favorite – Bazooka Joe. Not only did you get a good piece of gum to blow bubbles with, but the wrapper was also a comic strip. How awesome is that? And if that wasn’t enough, you could collect said wrappers and send them in for a prize like a secret decoder ring or if you had a ton of them – the best prize of all – The X Ray Specs. I chewed and I chewed until my little jaws couldn’t chew anymore, but I had about a 100 of those damn comic wrappes and sent them in.
I had it all planned out. I would get the glasses and hope they looked like sun glasses, so I could pretend I was cool like Fonzie. But the secret to my brillant scheme was I would be wearing the glasses and see through the girls' shirts and dresses. Panties and bras here I come.
But alas, the mail went out and I waited and I waited and I waited. I got nothing, nada, zilch. I chewed my heart out for nothing. I guess it was in the cards that I wasn’t going to see the girls' boobs in my class. (An apology to the girls in my class at St. Pauls Catholic School.)
Once you got older and graduated to the upper eschelon of gum chewing, you got a little classier with Big Red. This was a cinnamon flavored gum that the guys chewed when they thought they were going to score and make out with the girls. I never liked the Big Red. It tasted funny and burned my tongue. Coincidently, I never got to make out with the girls either. Not that I had “zoo breath” as my ole man would call it, I chewed some sort of minty kind…kissibly fresh…but to no avail.
As I stood there contemplating my gum purchase…I noticed something else. The containers. When did gum need to be put in tin cans and wrapped in cellophane? Does gum really need a cardboard box and inside the gum is individually wapped in platic where you have to punch them out? Seriously what kind of gum is this?
The gum I chewed as stated above was in paper wrapping or plastic wrapping. It didn’t take a combination to get your gum. You ripped the package, you had gum, easy as that. Now gum is housed like you are buying medication.
As I was staring at the excess of chewing gum products, it dawned on me that this little section was a lot like life. We don’t need all this over indulgence and when we are done with it, it all gets spit out.
When it came time for me to check out at the store, I hurriedly grabbed a pack fo something, anything, which ended up being Ice Breakers “new” Ice Cubes. Basically it is just mint gum shaped in squares. Despite the vivid colors, fancy packaging, the gum is still gum. It still hurt my jaws when I chewed it and it still made my breath kissably fresh.. until it was time to spit out.