“Oh, come on! You’ve got to be kidding!” I laughed as I was scrolling through my phone.
My son Alex came into the room. “What are you laughing about?” He asked as he came up behind me to see what I was looking at on my phone.
“Well, we’re number one again!” I kept laughing.
“Who?” He sounded confused.
“Our great state of New Jersey!” I showed him the article I’d been reading. “It seems we’re going to be the first state to ban chewing gum!”
“Seriously?” Now Alex was laughing as he sat on the couch across from me. “Why?”
“Because the manufacturers stopped using natural ingredients to make it chewy and instead have been adding synthetic plastic polymers and rubber.” I looked over at him. “You know, the same stuff they use when they’re making tires!”
“When did they start doing that?” He asked.
“It seems they’ve been doing it since the 60’s but we’re just finding out now.”
“That sounds awful.” Alex shook his head. “Lucky for me I don’t chew gum.”
“Me either.” I held the side of my cheek with the palm of my hand. “My TMJ says it’s a bad idea to chew it.”
My husband Steven came into the room. “Chew what?”
“Gum.” I pointed to my phone. “New Jersey wants to ban it along with a dozen other things that have plastic or rubber added to it.”
Steven shrugged his shoulders. “I guess that makes sense but why not just let everyone know they’re actually chewing on car tires and plastic bottles? That way they can decide for themselves instead of just banning it.”
“Exactly!” I nodded in agreement. “I have fond memories of begging my Mom for one of her Chiclets!” I looked over at Alex smiling as I thought about the memory. “When she’d say yes you got to search in her purse for that little yellow box but when you found it it would always be empty!” I shook my head at the memory.
“How’s that a fond memory?” Alex asked looking confused.
“Because then you got to dig in the bottom of her purse hoping to find that loose square of candy coated goodness! If you actually found one it would be like finding gold if you were a kid!” I couldn’t help but laugh. “It always tasted a little bit funny but hey…” I shrugged my shoulders. “Beggars couldn’t be choosers. Right?”
Alex shuttered. “That sounds disgusting!”
“Sometimes it was.” I had to nod in agreement. “That could also be another reason why, when I grew up, I wasn’t much of a gum chewer.”
“So your Mom had the yellow box?” Steven asked. “Wasn’t that the peppermint one?”
“Yup.” I stopped for a moment. “You know. Now that I think about it I never remember seeing her chew gum.”
“Probably because she wasn’t going to dig around in the bottom of her purse to find the loose ones.” Alex said.
I looked over at him shaking my head realizing he was probably right.
