Double My Pleasure

Well friends, I have some sad news to impart: yours truly has fallen off the wagon. I know what you’re thinking, “D.Parker, I didn’t know you had stopped drinking!” Don’t be silly, I would never give up the drink. What I did give up was chewing gum. Five and a half years ago. Not a big deal for some, but I was addicted. Nothing brought out the New York in me like a nice piece of Doublemint, snapping and popping and cracking like it was my job. I was up to a pack a day when I started to develop chronic jaw pain, and I knew I had to stop. Cold turkey. Hell, I was probably the only kid in the history of the world who REALLY NEVER chewed gum over the three and a half long years I wore braces. If I could do it in junior high, I could certainly do it now.

But it was tough and man, oh man, I really missed it. Especially at times like teacher conferences when I worried that I might have wine breath. Or when I met Maverick’s new associate after a dinner of Chicken with Forty Cloves of Garlic. Somehow an Altoid just never seemed to get the job done, no matter how hard I chewed them.

But I’m back, baby, and it ain’t pretty. After witnessing my chompfest last night, my own son who has never demonstrated an appreciation for manners, asked me to please cease and desist from “chewing” gum in his presence. He threatened to take my three-pack of Wintermint Eclipse and donate it to our troops along with disposable razors and Chap Stick, but in anticipation of such a slick move I had gone ahead and opened every pack! Even Charlie would be embarrassed to donate a used pack of gum.

When I first got off gum I thought the tooth and jaw pain was bad, now it’s barely negligible compared to the other aches and pains that plague forty-somethings: numb toes, sciatica, arthritis and the sagging skin around my elbows. True that sagging skin doesn’t physically hurt, but it makes me imagine the pain that would accompany gouging out my eyes with a grapefruit spoon when I look at it. Kind of the same thing. Anyway I started to think why shouldn’t I chew gum? So what if it makes me look stupid and obnoxious? It also makes me look tough and that is helpful when you are elbowing your way between the tighly-elbowed up to a bar, or when your daughter’s boyfriend makes like he’s going to take your favorite spot on the sofa, or when you put leftovers on the dinner table for the second time in a week. I know that Maverick would have lectured me on proper meal rotation if I hadn’t been snapping my gum as I placed the steaming Tupperware on the table.

Another pro to chewing gum is that it keeps me from eating. Not completely, I’m sorry to say, but when I’m overcome with the urge to snarf down a package of Oreos, I throw back a piece of gum instead, and by the time I’ve exhausted the flavor I’ve also exhausted my jaw plus everyone knows a chocolate cookie tastes like shit when you’ve got Wintermint with Zylotol on your tongue. I just saved myself like a zillion calories and a huge zit. Chomping is also helpful in keeping me awake during those really boring stretches of the day like if I’m babysitting for my two-year-old nephew and he wants me to read the same boring book over and over again and it’s one of those books that doesn’t actually have any words but he really liked the words I made up. Or when I have to sit through a three hour lecture at church because Charles is preparing for confirmation and the toothpicks I have inserted between my eyelids are just not enough. Or when Maverick wants me to sit with him and watch NOVA.

So I’m chewing and I’m loving it! Frankly, my timing really couldn’t be better, what with the holidays approaching. Maybe if I am snapping gum I won’t be the last one to get picked for our Thanksgiving Football Game. Nobody will dare comment that my turkey is dry, when I’m looking so tough. And I think it goes without saying that it will come in very handy around the Holiday Punch Bowl.