Gum, Candy

By Mary

Candy. I was never allowed to have candy when I was little. My parents met working in a macrobiotic restaurant which I believe instilled in them a need to only serve us rice and miso soup, they weren't completely successful with that, but they did manage to cut out sweets. They also had their own restaurant at two different times, and we were always told that Dad taught Mom how to cook.

I only remember Dad cooking for us once. Mom went somewhere and he was tasked with cooking us corn and potato chowder. I loved it when my mom cooked this for us and was quite excited to have Dad cooking it for us as I was sure he would do a better job than my mom. He had to. He had taught her to cook after all. It took him hours and hours to cook the chowder, and when he put it at the table in front of us it was gray and hard and lumpy. It looked like the wall paper paste my mom would mix up to hang up wall paper – her paste was homemade and never quite kept the paper on. I scooped up some chowder because it was my only choice for nourishment. The wall paper paste tasted better than the soup, and I knew as I was frequently sampling the paste. I had a penchant for the taste of paste and glue. Nothing I liked better than a good sip of glue—I wasn’t phased by the threats that it was made from horses’ hoofs, sounded organic to me.

Even better than glue was gum. We were allowed to go trick or treating but not eat the candy. I never knew where it would go, but it would disappear. Bridget had a little table and chairs that were given to her for Christmas from Grandma. One of the legs was broken off the table, either because we were sitting on it or Dad had never properly put it together. We were sad it was broken and got my dad to fix it for us. Instead of reaching for a screwdriver and screw, he reached on top of the fridge and pulled out our Halloween candy. He gave me a piece of gum from it told me to chew it. I was upset that that was where our candy was but more excited than anything that I got a piece of gum. When it was soft in my mouth, Dad asked for it, I sneakily only gave him half of it. He used the chewed up gum I gave him to stick the leg back on the table (which looking back at it now boggles my mind, my dad worked in a chair factory for awhile, making chairs, he had to know a different way to get the leg to stick on the table other than gum, unless that’s what they did in his chair factory, my dad is small—very small, barely 5 feet and weighs 90 pounds-- maybe it was an elf chair factory? I totally can see elves fixing chairs that way).

After the table was fixed, I got on the bus to go kindergarten, and I was absolutely thrilled to have a tiny bit of gum in mouth. The only way I usually got gum was digging under the bus seats. It was incredible; there was a plethora of chewed gum stuck to the undersides of the bus seats. I didn’t understand how one could give up their gum so easily and abandon it on the bus, but it gave me so many to choose from, did I want pink bubble gum? White mint gum? I could have any kind I wanted; it was there for my taking. But I had to be stealth, I knew not everyone was as excited as I was to chew the gum on the under sides of the seats. I was one of the last kids dropped off on the bus route. The seats with the most, best gum were at the back of the bus. As more kids where dropped off, I would make my way to the back of the bus, where the good gum seats were. I would wait for the perfect opportunity, when no one was sitting across from me and anyone sitting behind or in front of me were distracted. I would feel around for the perfect piece and grab it and throw in my mouth when the opportunity struck. Success. I was so happy to be chewing gum.

The only other time I got fresh, non ABC gum, we were out as a family at Bridgeman’s Ice Cream. Right next to our booth was a dispenser with gum packages that you could buy for $0.25. Gum, all I could think or see the whole meal was gum, gum, gum. I had to have that gum. I didn’t know how I was going to get it, but it would be mine. I didn’t have $0.25 but I would get the gum. When we were getting up to leave, I waited to leave last from the booth and quickly snuck a pack into my pocket when no one was looking. In the parking lot getting in the car, I was thrilled, thrilled that I had the gum, but scared, now what. What happen if Mom found out? How was I going to chew it? I had to chew it. It had to go in my mouth, I kept fondling it in my pocket, gum, gum, gum.

We stopped at the grocery store next. I was obsessed, there was more gum at the store, I needed more gum. How was I going to get more gum? I saw gum in the gum ball machines. It had to be mine. My mom was distracted. I knew there was change in her pocket. I snuck my hand in her pocket and found a quarter when she wasn’t looking. She was paying for the groceries, and I snuck to the candy machine and got a huge round ball of gum. It went in my pocket with the other gum. Gum! I was so excited. This gum needed to get in my mouth. I thought about it the whole half hour ride home. It was dark when we got home, the groceries were brought in, everyone was getting ready for bed. Perfect chance for me to chew my gum. I put the big blue ball of gum in mouth. I tried to bite down; it wouldn’t break. There was blue all over my mouth and lips and my mouth was filled with this huge… jawbreaker, I couldn’t get it to get smaller I sucked as hard and as fast as I could. My mom found me. “What do you have! Where did you get that?” (The blue all over my face must have given it away.) I started crying. I couldn’t tell her. She yelled at me more and brought me into the bathroom and made me spit my precious gum (umm.. jawbreaker) into the toilet. My precious gum that I had fought so hard to get. She made me flush the toilet; I cried more. She didn’t know about the gum in my coat pocket though, the packet. I couldn’t eat it now, I knew I would get in trouble, I went to catholic school, I knew I was going to hell for stealing. I threw the gum away at my first chance and confessed to the stealing at my next confession. The Hail Mary’s never took away my stealing guilt.

Danny, Mary, and Bridget hyped up on life, not sugar.