The Time I Ate 30 Year Old Gum

While it sounds like it’d be gross, it was only kind of gross.

You’ll really only understand this post if you’re older than 40…

A few years back, I was shopping in an antique store. I came across a pile of 1980’s baseball card packs for a pretty cheap price, so I bought them.

I’m not a big baseball card collector, but I thought it’d be neat to anxiously rip open the pack as I did when I was a kid to see what cards I got.

This is the part where it helps to be over 40…

When I opened the packs, I had totally forgot the little stick of gum that was included with the cards (yes kids, baseball cards used to come with gum). In this case, the sticks were all broke into a few pieces that were hard as a rock, but they were still identifiable as the gum I once knew.

Then the ingenious “Hmmm” light bulb came on in the back of my head.

I wonder if it still tastes the same…

So I curiously started putting the variety of broken pieces in my mouth.

To my surprise, they actually still had flavor.

If you remember the flavor, it was wasn’t really flavor. It was just the taste of sugar, but it was good. I was instantly transported back in time to being a kid again.

The flavor didn’t last long though, so I tossed another piece in my mouth, then another, then another. I think I bought ten packs, so it was equally as many broken sticks of gum.

Being they were so crispy, I couldn’t really chew them, so the pieces just sort of sat in my mouth until the flavor disappeared. After a little while, the joyous childhood memories faded away into feelings of, “maybe I shouldn’t have done that.“

I became miserably sick for a couple days after with a horrible case of stomach yuck.

Some would think, “I hope you learned your lesson”, but did I?

Of course not.

It simply provoked a new curiosity. I wanted to see if it was an abnormality that I got sick, so I went searching a few months later and a found a couple more packs.

And again I excitedly opened the packs and tossed the broken pieces into my mouth.

Surprisingly, I DID get sick again, though not as bad as the first time.

Would I do it again?

Maybe, but perhaps next time I’ll try a pack of football cards.

Marty