.FOOrD BLOrG. mYStErY.....................(something to chew on)

For the past few posts I have had an idea in the back of my mind. The concept of taste. What is its mysterious origin within us all? And how does that taste shape us?.... I won't get too into all of that (because my mind often dislikes finished thoughts) but as I approached this post all about gum I thought this might be an opportune time to 'chew' on the idea. (cuz the post is about gum...... and you have to chew gum......well, I guess you don't have to but it is more enjoyable....eh hem.)

I have come to realize over the years how much my personal tastes have isolated me in some ways. For instance at work where people discus sports and fantasy sports I have no taste for those things and therefor no place in the conversations. I don't listen to the radio in order to discover new bands or watch those Mtv shows that pay people who ruin their lives money. (I think the latter of those two is about one step from a disability reality show for people to laugh at.) I have no taste for it. Does that make me cool to listen to different music or to not watch those shows? No. I argue that all those things are driven by taste. There are days when I wish that my taste was different because it would be easier to feel included. For some reason I can't.

(cue: Joy Division 'ISOLATION')

When I was in first grade my mom could look out the kitchen window and see me sitting on a bench by myself watching the other kids play together. I guess I still am that same little boy only now that boy is listening to Third Eye Foundation and putting weird snacks in his mouth.

Which brings us to our first gum:

I am pretty sure Sarah got this for me but she may have found it in NY....hmmm. Anyway, it says SOUR so it has to be sour right? N-O-O-O-P-E. (that is like super nope) When I opened it I felt a weird wash of nostalgia. Something familiar and yet not the good kind of familiar. Oh yes, FRUIT STRIPE! That stupid gum that looked fun but had all of a second worth of flavor, if you call that a flavor. It was more like somebody chewed a piece of gum with a chunk of pouperie and breathed into your mouth. Hopefully this will taste better. Nope. Although the flavor lasted 2 minutes. Almost. So plus 50 points. (yeah I added points to entice the sports crowd...) But the paper stuck to the stick of gum so minus 800 flags and bases.
I don't know anything about this gum. I bought it blindly at an Italian grocery in NY. I could google it but I like adventure when it comes to these things. As I opened the package I smelled something familiar again. Chicklets. AWE MAN. (minus fifteen chest bounces if this is a chicklet...) And here is when surprise comes into play. . . It looked like a rectangle with round edges and crunched like a chicklet but it tasted like mentholatum. Like when you were a kid and you put it under your nose and licked it on kinda accident. But in gum form. The flavor lasted about a minute and a half. (so plus some sliding and putting things aggresivly in basket shapes where it just falls out and repeat.) *This is going well.
What? Hubba Bubba has a mystery for me to solve with my mouth? Well, detective tounge is here! ugh. Forget that last part...or two parts. While we are on the subject of mysteries. What is a hipster? I know what I picture and that is a person who dresses in a certain way to get attention. Why would anyone do that? If it wasn't for some reason comforting to me to have a lesbian haircut, over manicured eyebrows, and a lip piercing I wouldn't. I don't want anyone looking at me. I bought invisible spray but it got lost in the mail. (cuz it was invisible).....(and so was the mailing address sticker for some reason)

This gum was also nostalgic because it is freakin Hubba Bubba. It smelled like Hubba Bubba. My favorite flavor of which is cherry cola. This flavor smells like cherry lemonade so I am down. The piece was yellow on the outside and red in the center. It looked like a fat Bonker. (if you remember bonkers....) the taste was..............cherry lemonade. I am almost certain. You know when they make Airheads, the way they get a mystery flavor? It is the by product of changing from one flavor to another. Rather than stop the machines or throw the weird candy out they just call it 'mystery'. Bet you didn't know that?!? Amazing I know. ( Try working that into a conversation about Ke$ha or the Bulls) Oh, the flavor lasted around six minutes but that is a long time to intensely salivate. (So Hubba is up a quarter and down a penalty box...or something)

In closing, I don't mean to sound special in anyway. Quite the contrary, I think everyone has different tastes but if they are similar to others in large margins you look to be apart of a whole of something. Ah, who knows. Not me, I just know that it is weird for me now to watch children play on a playground.