My Sticky Situation

Gum. I stepped in gum.

Today I was enjoying a break from work and taking a walk around my office building when I suddenly felt like someone was stepping on the back of my shoe. Turning around to glare at the rude person who was walking WAY to close to me, I saw no one and smelled a familiar minty fresh scent – it was then I realized I had put my foot smack dab on top a clump of sticky, germ infused gum.

Who just spits it out like that? I guess I wouldn’t be surprised about all of this if I were sauntering through a truck stop, but a high end office building? Please. Get some class, people! Are you too busy being a high powered lawyer that when you’re done with your gum you choose to let it stumble out of your mouth and hope your assistant is close enough behind to catch it? I don’t care who you are, gum is like the devil’s glue and is such a pain to clean off... I should know... my right foot is currently plastered to the floor beneath my desk because not even all the scraping in the world can remove this piece of rudeness from my sole.

As you can tell, I don’t just have an issue with the gum. I have an issue with the people who just spit it out. These are the same people who leave public restrooms filthy. Who raised these rodents? And I’m sure if these guilty gum spitters found themselves in a similar sticky situation, they would throw a fit.

I myself learned a valuable lesson and had karma bite me in the butt when I selfishly disposed of my gum in a careless way. I was at a beach with my dubble bubble practically melting in my mouth from the heat. Wanting to get rid of it and seeing that the trash can was a distant 10 feet away, my laziness got the best of me and I decided to toss it in the sand. Later that day, forgetting about my careless action, I was frolicking in the sand and stepped in MY OWN GUM. I was barefoot, it was sticky and the situation wasn’t pretty.

Have you ever stepped in melting gum barefoot? No? Well hot gum on a heel is like super glue on fingers (I’ve superglued my fingers together before too, that’s another post all together). Even when I thought I had scrubbed it off, I could still smell the dubble bubble and had residual gumminess on my foot for weeks. I made myself two promises after that: 1) never chew dubble bubble again (the smell alone sends chills down my spine and my heel starts to throb) and 2) never spit out your gum on the ground, Rudy McRudster – throw it away!!!

If it weren’t for the fact that it was MY gum, I would have flipped out even more because if it wasn’t, it would have been like having a creepy old man licking my foot... assuming that whatever random gum I come across has been chewed by a creepy old man and for comedy’s sake, lets say it is. I realized how disgusted a fellow beach bum would have felt if they stumbled about my dubble bubble trouble – ew.

So the next time you’re thinking, “this gum sucks, I don’t want it anymore”, either find a trash can or be a champ and swallow it – it only takes 7 years to “pass”, right? Because for every person who steps on a stranger’s gum, an angel loses its wings... no, wait, that’s a bit dramatic, but just remember that public places aren’t yours, they are everyone’s and when you disrespect a public space by spitting your gum on the ground, you’re spitting on your fellow man.

Disrespect. What a sticky subject.