Let’s be honest. This was a pretty common reaction of mine… as a child. There were many occasions where I was denied wonderful experiences such as the amazing FRUIT STRIPED gum! C’mon, they had tattoos on EACH individual wrapper! 

 You may ask, “Where the heck did this thought come from?” Well, if you only know me and my thoughts….I think A LOT about candy/sugar/food, etc… But, last night at my weekly happy hour/dinner with a few of my girlfriends we reminisced about childhood experiences involving food. So, naturally I shared the story of me convincing my friend to put scrunccis around her ankles at the bottom of her pjs like me. This was so we could sneak a little midnight snack  (teddy grahams, cheese-its, etc…) and we proceeded to get caught giggling in the pantry (dang it!), only for me to yell “Run, Kylee!!” (and she did- good friend!). 

This must have spiked Rita’s (my friend) childhood memory of not receiving dessert after dinner on a normal basis, either. She said “Oh yea, well my dessert was the Fruit Striped gum, which of course, was on top of the sink where we couldn’t even reach it. Damn!” At this point I was near wetting my pants laughing so hard, because I felt like she was describing my childhood. Whenever I would spend the weekends with my dad, I would load up on bubble gum like it was the end of the world, especially the Fruit Striped gum.

I loved visiting my grandparents’ in Edna, TX, because they kept out JARS of the individual wrapped bubble gum, Dubble Bubble. You know, the kind with jokes printed on each wrapper.  It was my duty to stuff my pockets, as well as, my mouth, jam-packed as full as possible. (I had killer jaw muscles.) Then (with my largely stuffed pockets- that crunched with each step) I’d head out to the back of the property to help Paw-Paw Gene gather pecans or “help” him weld in his barn. Good times.