Gum

I have always had an obsession with gum since I was about 7 because I discovered that chewing naturally cleans ear wax and I was afraid I would puncture my ear drum with a cotton swab. I loved everything about gum: the constant chewing, bubble blowing, cracking sounds. When I was 10 I learned how to make bubbles with ease and by the time I was 13, I could snap my gum extremely loud. I today can still go through a pack a day and I probably look like a cud chewing animal, but I don’t care. Gum had turned into a coping mechanism for me.

I pop my gum most often when I am in a big crowd of people. With the pass of each person, I give a loud crack. Why? Well when I was younger, I figured that maybe the mean, judgmental things I think can be heard outside my head.

*Pop* you’re fat.
*Pop* you’re a whore.
*Pop* I wish I were you.

With each crack, I know that these people won’t really hear what I am thinking about them.

The best part about being up in Utah is that the cold makes the crack even louder: The Mountains reverberate the sound. I find it the equivalent of screaming without so much of the effort. So I walk around campus, screaming, screaming, screaming, and judging, judging, judging, but nobody has a clue. Everyone just turns their heads to see just some kid chewing cud all day long; No clue that he is screaming out what he hates about them, and so they just turn a walk away.