I used to chew gum a lot as a kid. Remember that zebra decorated pack, I think it was called Fruit Stripe? And then there Bubblicious. Probably didn’t spell that right. The point is, I loved chewing gum. Every once in a while I’d get some Wrigley Spear Mint and I’d feel a little more grown up.

I haven’t actually had a chewing gum in probably 25 years, if not more. I grew out of it and there was other candy to be had. My teeth also got super sensitive as I aged, so I didn’t actually want to chew gum anymore.

Yesterday, as I write this, we had some family over and my Uncle brought a pack of gum. Why? I have no clue. I’m 40 years old and he thinks he needs to bring candy. Anyway, as you do, I thanked him and set it aside. I had no real intention of opening it. My mom suggested we give it to my nephew, which sounded like a good idea.

But then I decided that I once liked to chew gum. Fruit flavored candy is always the best. Starburst, Skittles, things like that were always staples of my childhood candy basket. Oh, and Jolly Ranchers, can’t forget those.

So, I popped the plastic off the pack, and put a stick in my mouth, expecting a burst of nostalgia to hit me like a brick.

Instead, I got a fake fruit flavored chemical taste.

See, I don’t know if I remember it wrong or if they’ve changed it, but this shit was nasty. I mean disgusting on a level I can’t even describe. I did chew on it for a few minutes. I’m an adult and I can handle unpleasant flavors better now than when I was a kid. I thought maybe it would get better, maybe I’d start to remember why I liked gum so much when I was younger.

But it never happened. The only thing that did was the flavor wearing off quicker than I remember. In this case, it was a good thing, since it tasted so bad.

It’s odd, isn’t it? You have these memories of small things from your childhood, and they all seem so vivid. But then you try to recreate them as an adult, and they’re not as good as you thought they were. Some of that is that things are different now, but also, we tend to romanticize the things we loved back when we were kids. Cartoons were the greatest, but as an adult we’d all be pretty bored. Gazing at the clouds or jumping on a trampoline were awesome when you were 10. When you’re 40, you have to worry about breaking a limb.

There are a lot of awesome memories I have from when I was a kid. I’m now thinking about how many of them were actually that good, and how many were just totally awesome because I was a child. It makes me a bit sad because it taints those memories a little.

But, I think I’ll choose to remember chewing gum as the joy it was back then rather than the disgusting experience it was today. I’ll do the same for those other memories, even if my view looking back is a bit rose colored.

Now excuse me, I have to go brush my teeth to see if I can get this taste out of my mouth.

This was day 8 of Blaugust 2025