Alas, Poor 5 ™ Gum, I Hardly Knew Ye.
March 5, 2009
So yeah, sweet stuff. I have detailed my undying love for the gum, 5 ™, in a previous ramble at yourselves - albeit a rather short one. I really do dig that shit, I cannot lie, which is why it pains me so to realize that I can no longer have the stuff. You see this all started shortly after I arrived here in Ohio - well, about an hour before, if you want to be exactly exact.
And we must, for we worship Science here, not some two-bit space-boogeyman that one of you neolithic goons masturbated up one night.
But the point is on my way here from Omaha, I became... ill. And not just 'oh no, I don't feel good' ill, but 'hogod, I'm going to puke while driving' ill. And I did. About three miles from where I'm at, on i-75, I had to pull over ultra-fast to stop myself from vomiting all over the innards of my automobile. And I really like my automobile, so I wasn't about to curse it to live life with that pukey scent.
On the plus side, I now know how fast my car can go from 75 to zero. Of course the speed limit was 65, but the big blue sign said 75, so how could I resist going faster, Faster, FASTER! I mean sure I was feeling 'uneasy' and 'like my bowels were going to explode' ever since Indianapolis, but I figured that was a mere byproduct of that city; have I mentioned that I really, really fucking hate Indianapolis now?
You will too, once you drive through that shitty motherfucker.
But you know, I survived if barely, even though I must have made one fucking hell of a good impression once I arrived here in Ohio. 'Hi, honey. Can I hit the shower to wash off the puke?' Yeah, most of it managed to spray projectile-style all over the i-75, making me probably look like the mother of all drunk drivers (it was about the time bars tend to let the drunks rampage out on the streets demolition derby style, after all).
And was sick enough that I really didn't feel up to eating. Or drinking. For two solid days. At the end of day two I was forced to take in some water, but I was really really opposed to the idea on moral grounds. I'd had enough of the puking after all, but somehow I kept the water down. And then the next day, I managed a tiny little bit of soup and a sandwich at Panera bread. And that experience is a story all its own.
But I'll save that for another day. I have to leave myself something to talk about in the future, now, don't I?
But having gone three days without food or drink, I was implored to try something wacky. See, I am usually saddled with headaches, big motherfucking headaches. Not quite migraines - though I get those too every rare once in a while - but nonetheless they tend to be massive downers since I can function, if barely, but I'm never really happy about it. Hence my shining, sunny disposition... goddamnit.
But yes, I was implored to drop the diet soda. You see, shortly before I moved in my domestic companion here had dropped them because it was determined that migraines suffered here in Ohio were because of two sugar substitutes: Aspartame ™ and Sucralose ™ - and a lack of them had caused said migraines to completely dry up. So since by day four I was almost over my caffeine withdrawal, I figured why the fuck not.
So I haven't had Diet Coke ™ or any other diet soda since January 16th, and my headaches have dropped from an at-least-once-a-day frequency to... every other week or so, give or take? And while I really like that stuff, I've found I can almost get by on iced tea as a substitute; it has some caffeine, and none of the bullshit sugar substitute crap that was apparently setting my head off like the Fourth of July.
So that made me start checking the labels on candy and stuff, and as the two of us have been finding out, those two ingredients have been finding their way into fucking everything. Cold medicine, mouthwash, and fucking vitamins - apparently the pharmaceutical industry thinks it needs to fucking make everything palatable. I say fuck that, give me horrible-tasting medicine so i motherfucking know it's motherfucking medicine.
Assholes.
But getting to my point, after having resumed my daily walks here - since I don't have a 24 Hour Fitness ™ to treadmill within - I discovered something in one of my coat pockets. It was a pack of 5 ™ gum, which had apparently been there since I got shit-canned at ADT. So I said 'fucking awesome!' and almost shoved a stick in my mouth when... I thought perhaps I should check the ingredients.
And sure enough... it had Aspartame ™ in it. Motherfucker.
Hence the Experiment. I thought instead of just throwing it away, I'd put the 5 ™ up on the mail box, and see how long it took someone to steal it. I mean shit, the stuff's awesome right? And the apartment two doors down, where there's apparently thirty people living inside, they should appreciate the value of something cheap like free gum, right? Well I was wrong. But I didn't throw it away, somebody else fucking did.
Goddamn primitives.