I’ll be the first to admit it: I have a serious addiction. I always have at least one pack with me. I use it to calm down or unwind after a meal. My fingers smell different, and so does my breath. I know I ought to quit, but that hasn’t stopped me from doing it. I’ll quit one of these days, when I’m a little older. Not now though. Right now, I’m indestructible, as far as I’m concerned.
I’m talking, of course, about my gum-chewing habit. What did you think I was talking about?
There’s a reason that one of the most common “stop smoking” aids is in chewing gum form. Gum, in my opinion, is one of the few things more addictive than tobacco — and unlike most substances today, it doesn’t need to be smuggled into the country.
It’s also been with us for many, many years. The war on drugs may have had some success, but just ask any teacher: We are losing the war on gum. In the old days, the only kind of chewing gum one could get was of the sugared variety. It was tasty but also tended to take a toll on one’s choppers. After the first cavity or two, one could count on one’s parents to police the house for gum with the thoroughness of a prison guard.
With the introduction of sugarless gum, however, times have changed. Now one can chew away with near impunity. There’s never any “wow, I need to stop” moment — unless you get told while chewing that you look like a cow, an insult that never seems to lose its sting.
That’s not to say that a gum habit does not have certain downsides. In fact, there are several. The chair I’m sitting on right now has gum on the underside. So do about half of the others in the room. At this rate of accumulation, we’ll probably have covered half the Earth’s surface by mid-century. I don’t spend too much time reading environmental tracts, but that can’t be a good thing. On the plus side, this might improve traction on our roads during inclement weather.
Gum chewing also really works the jaw muscle, which is a danger we really ought to take more seriously. Ever chewed a piece of gum for more than an hour? That happened to me once when I lost track of how long I’d been chewing. All of a sudden I couldn’t say anything longer than the Pledge of Allegiance without needing to give my face a rest. I haven’t ever done it again but I’m still worried that I’m going to end up like a snake, able to unhinge my jaws and swallow an egg the size of my head. And here I was thinking I’d never find a nightmare more terrifying than having to balance a checkbook.
Gum chewing occupies an interesting niche in the “appropriateness hierarchy” of activities, somewhere between nail clipping and eating without utensils. It’s not something you want to do around someone who doesn’t know you well, unless you want to look like you still need a babysitter. One quickly learns to distinguish between one’s “gum friends” — the people one can safely chew around — and one’s “non-gum friends” — the people one can’t. I’m always pleased to see someone around me take out a piece of gum; it means our relationship has progressed to another level and that pretty soon I might get treated to some dark family secrets.
It’s an unwritten rule that when one has a piece of gum in public, one must offer a piece to all the people in the immediate vicinity. This may sound somewhat silly on the surface, but it’s also absolutely true. Just try sneaking a quick piece, without sharing, when you’re out with friends and see what happens. My guess is that you will suddenly find yourself treated like an outcast. In the days of the Italian Renaissance, wars started this way between city-states all the time. Thankfully, Galileo came up with the jumbo pack, and the problem of sharing was tamed enough for civilization to progress.
Even those who aren’t gum chewers must admit that gum has done some good things for society. In particular, it has dramatically improved the quality of the average person’s breath. When you add it all up, gum has probably done more to make the world smell better than anything since one of our ancestors invented bathing. If important political decisions were made in gum-filled rooms instead of smoke-filled rooms, there’s no doubt that the country would run more smoothly. The pleasant aroma of mint would make even the bitterest debates positively congenial.
At some point, we all tend to give up our gum chewing. Maybe it’s because gum seems like a frivolous expense when one is eating ramen noodles and sleeping on a futon. Or maybe one decides to quit after the first time one is banished from the boardroom with a wad in one’s hair. While we’re young, though, gum retains a strange and powerful hold on us. We will all be fine, but I pray for our poor chairs.
Matt’s column runs biweekly Wednesdays. He can be reached at m.waring@cavalierdaily.com.
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