This is the confession of a gum-swallower. I admit it. For as long as I can remember, I have always swallowed my bubble gum instead of throwing it out. This used to be a major subject of contention with my mother when I was a child, as she was convinced that the practice would lead to my untimely demise. The gum mass was indigestible according to her, you see, and as such could not pass properly through the gastrointestinal tract. I was at great risk of numerous medical conditions because of this questionable assertion, including "twisted intestines," "stomach pileup," and choking to death on my own vomit after the bubble gum body inevitably attempts to escape through my esophagus, closing the pipes indefinitely on the way out.
Naturally, I never believed a single word the old lady said. I've been a gum-swallower my entire life, right up until my mid-20s. It was only then that I experienced a veritable epiphany of how wise my mother may actually have been.
Several weeks ago, I purchased a fairly large quantity of Dubble Bubble for my daughter's gum ball machine. The amount of gum I acquired was directly proportional to my own developed taste for the product, since it resembled crack cocaine in addictiveness. After originally buying the pre-filled gum ball machine, I'd proceeded to consume almost the entire contents in just a few short days, and thought I'd better stock up on the stuff if I was to maintain a positive relationship with my young child.
Unfortunately, much like Al Pacino in "Scarface," when confronted with such a sizeable amount of pseudo-cocaine, I attacked it with relish. I practically lived off bubble gum for several days. I couldn't get enough. I ate six, seven, sometimes eight small globes at a time in an attempt to find the perfect mix of synthetic flavors. I studied the texture of chewed gum by placing the most perfect tooth and fingerprint impressions ever taken outside of a crime lab. I watched with fascination as I created drab shades of gray from the most myriad selection of brightly colored items. I was almost a scientist of bubble gum by the end of those few days, you see. And each experiment became yet another lump lying heavy on my stomach.
Alas, I was destined for trouble. After consuming such a vast quantity of bubble gum, certain bodily processes started to become strange. My bowel movements rotated from frequent to nearly constipated for several days. For the life of me, I couldn't predict at what point the need to crap would attack. When I did plop down to plop, both the defecation process and the subsequent wiping would seem almost...
Sticky.
This went on for another day or two. It was only then that an event occurred that would change my philosophy on gum swallowing forever. Perhaps the bolus of evil had lodged itself in my colon somewhere just as my mother claimed it would, or perhaps the passing of such hideousness naturally requires an extended length of time; I fear I will never know the answer. All I know is that during an otherwise perfectly normal evening of watching television and reading a book, the cramps began.
I'm reasonably confident that I know what childbirth feels like now. It felt as though my colon was uncoiling and recoiling itself within my abdomen. I rushed to the bathroom and sat down, expecting a torrent of acidic pain. Ah, if only I'd been so lucky! When the defecation came, it felt as though it came out sideways. My sphincter cried out in agony, the toilet sang in joy at the miracle it was about to receive. When I regained consciousness and brought myself to the point of wiping, I discovered the true horror of the evening.
Before continuing, I consider it necessary to make one qualification. I possess a rather... how you say, furry posterior. I freely admit this. I am a man of gum swallowing and a hairy ass. A hairy bellybutton that was now virtually plastered with partially digested bubble gum.
If you've ever tried to get gum out of the hair on your head, you'll understand the conundrum that I was in. Once bubble gum has attached itself to the hair follicle, the two are inseparable. Inseparable like night and day. Inseparable like my bellybutton CHEEKS now were, welded together with a mass of rapidly hardening cement.
After realizing what had happened, I understandably wished to keep the gravity of the situation private. One does not glue his bellybutton cheeks together with fecal bubble gum and spread the proverbial word, you see. And so, I sat and thought. Thought HARD. What do you do? How am I going to get myself out of this one?
Okay, let's think about this. We have an uneven mass of bubble gum in the bellybutton hair. It needs to come out, obviously. But how do you get gum out of hair? I recall someone telling me that peanut butter is the only recourse. No, f**k that, I'm not making a whoopee sandwich in my ass. The thought of slathering brown sludge in with other brown sludge was not appealing.
Well, option number one: rip it out. old school, yo!!. So, using a small strip of toilet paper as a -=-=-=-=-shield, I grabbed a lump of the offending plaster and yanked.
WELL HOLY BUGGERY DUCKNUTS, BATMAN! That made my eyes water and my skull expand. Option number one is officially discarded, along with a healthy strip of my taint. Where do we go from here?
Well, maybe option number one isn't *totally* flawed. I'll take a shower! That'll loosen it up, right?
WRONG.
The bubble gum has become ONE with my bellybutton hair now. They are no longer separate entities by any stretch of the imagination. They are joined at the cellular level. Their electrons circle each other in a spinning mass of beauty and PAIN.
Now what? The taint is an area of the body far too sensitive to have hair ripped from it. You might as well expect me to rip off my arm to scratch an itch on my finger.
It was around then that I came to the only logical conclusion. We have to
*shave* it out, old bean. I'm sorry, dear sweet anus, but it's the only way. But what shall I shave it with, dear Liza, dear Liza?
I can't use the hand razor I shave my face with, certainly; would I be able to shear my whiskers every morning while knowing where it had been? That microglobs of poo-gum were being ground into my cheeks and neck?
No, certainly not! I do, however, have a small beard trimmer that might do the job. It was only a few dollars at Wal-Mart, after all; I can burn it when I'm done. Alrighty then, pants off, left leg up on the sink, offending mass of bubble gum presented comfortably, mirror positioned on the floor to help me aim. Okay, razor on, let's do this thing!
DEAR SWEET ZOMBIE IT'S STUCK!
Well isn't this wonderful, the undeniable reflex to jump and run from pain has kicked in! I'm now hopping around the bathroom with this two inch electric razor jammed firmly into my ass, dangling around like some sort of freakish technological tail.
The forces of physics have turned on me now. Gravity pulls the razor down as the momentum of my pain dance spins and twists it ever further into the tenderness of my crack. Screams begin to emerge through my gritted teeth. I try desperately to avoid waking my child and/or alerting my delightfully unsuspicious wife. After all, what would I tell them?
"Are you okay, dear?"
"Daddy, what's wrong?"
"Oh, nothing much. I tried to shave the bubblegum out of my ass, and now I'm waving the razor around like a second noodle. Don't mind me, go back to sleep!"
Okay, I've calmed myself down. I cradle the offending piece of plastic and agony in an attempt to reduce the pressure on my tormented rectum. Well now you're in a real pickle, eh? You thought it couldn't get any worse, didn't you?
It was around this point that I started to get my head on straight. One must keep in mind how difficult it is to employ high-level cognitive abilities when one is experiencing pain in his most sensitive of areas. Thankfully, my wits had returned.
The razor wasn't going to come out. I was faced with several options: A) Shave it out. B) Cut it out.
Solution A wasn't viable since I'd already destroyed my only non-vital razor. The only problem with B was that there were no scissors in the bathroom; in fact, the only scissors I could think of were down the hall, within the cutlery drawer of the kitchen. My wife was using the computer in the living room, and could very likely see the bathroom door...
Yet the pros greatly outweighed the cons.
So, hopping like a crippled dog, I held the electric beard trimmer firmly against my battered bellybutton hair and fumbled my way down the hall, praying to any possible deities that my wife wouldn't take this occasion to come get a snack or a glass of water. There was no answer for the situation I was in. The fates decided to smile upon me, I suppose. It seems perfectly reasonable that they would, of course, since they'd taken it upon themselves to so thoroughly destroy my sanity up until that point. I managed to duck-walk my way back to the bathroom, and with a carefulness that only a surgeon could appreciate, delicately extracted the clipper from myself.
Using the scissors, it didn't take all that long to snip away the majority of my post-gum. I shaved two long swaths into my ass, in fact, which resulted in the most agonizing discomfort over the next few days. Imagine rubbing two sheets of coarse sandpaper together. Then imagine a thin coat of unabsorbed poop-sweat turning the whole thing into a circus of embarrassment and skid marks. If there's a deep and philosophical message to be found in what I've written, it's lost on me. All I know is that under no circumstances should you ever... EVER... swallow your bubble gum.
