The Day I Wanted Gum

So I'm sitting at home, wandering around from one room to the other, which doesn't take very long since I live in a studio apartment. Occasionally I glare at my computer screen as I try to decide what to type next into my story. Should I make him fall in love? Shall I make her die of cancer?

Wait! I know! I'll get some gum. Gum helps me think. So I go out to my little car in the middle of the winter time and start driving down the road to the corner store. It's freezing inside the car and my teeth are chattering away. So while I'm making sounds like a helicopter and shaking like a leaf, I tentatively reach to the console in front of me to turn on the heat...

Suddenly a rabbit jumps out of no where! I slam on my breaks and fish tail to a stop! The rabbit stops in the middle of the road, staring at me. I get out of the car to see if it's okay and it's just staring at me.

“Shoo!” I say to it, waving my hand and trying to calm my heart from the sudden adrenaline.

I heard the rabbit scoff. At least, I think I heard it scoff. Do rabbits scoff?

Then it says to me, “YOU shoo!”

So now I'm staring at this rabbit that had the nerve to jump into the middle of the road, nearly killing me from a heart attack, and then talking to me as if I were some stupid human.

“Stupid human.” It says. Then it hops off the side of the road into the snowy woods.

Confused, flabbergasted, and still shaking although this time from fear, I get back into my car and start driving down the road again. Just as I was deciding that the talking rabbit was a severe hallucination of the cold weather (if such a thing is possible), I turn into the gas station and park my car.

When I walk into the mini mart, I noticed that there was no one behind the counter, so I assumed that the clerk must be stocking shelves somewhere. It's very quiet except for the hum of the refrigerators and . . . something else. I hear something that sounded like squeaking. I would have assumed it was a mouse somewhere, but it sounded like more than one little mouse squeaking. I look over to the counter where the clerk would be standing, towards the place just in front of it where the candies and gum is stocked.

Standing up on their ends were the packages of gum, wriggling and writhing, some of them even hopping up and down as they all squeaked. It looks like they are trying to get my attention, and as I moved closer, I can make out some of what they're saying.

“Pick me! Pick me! I'm very sweet! Really!”

“Hey, mac, over here. I'm the gum you want.”

“Check this out, dude! Fruity fresh! Tubular, yeah?”

The clerk comes out of the back where they stocked wine and liquors. At once, the gums quiet down and went right back into their places on their displays.

“You want something, man?” says the clerk to me. For a moment, I don't even know how to respond. I mean, how do most people act after having encountered a talking rabbit they nearly ran over and subsequently was insulted by it? Or witnessing an entire display of gum vying for your attention?

I stutter out something incomprehensible before I manage to say, “I just wanted some gum.” The clerk waits for a second, giving me a look that said I was about to waste his time if I didn't get the purchase of gum over with. So I snatch up a pack of some regular pink bubble gum.

I hear a muffled and triumphant, “Finally!” come from my hand before dropping the pack on the counter.

“Eighty five cents.” says the clerk, punching it into the register. The bell tinkled at the door and a tall man dressed in black comes in quickly. His face is covered with a ski mask. I was about to hand the change over to the clerk before I was faced with the wrong end of a gun.

“Don't move! You. Back up. Now.” He points the gun toward the clerk. “You, empty the register! Now! Do it!”

“Aw, man, would you listen to this schmuck?” I swear I felt myself drain of all feeling. I thought for sure that the clerk was talking back to the man who obviously had the upper hand. I hear a resounding gasp come from the crowd of gum by the counter. I even think the candy bars below it joined in.

The clerk was nearly shaking out of his boots as he was directed to put all the available cash from the drawer into a paper bag.

“Ever since he stole me this morning, he's been throwing me around his smelly car and then stuffing me into his smelly pants. The man has no class. I mean, come on! Liquor store robbery? He can't be more creative about his crimes?” It was the gun. The gun was talking now!

I had to smirk a little at what this gun was saying. “I don't think your gun likes you, man.” I say suddenly. The robber turns to me, his eyes squinting in disbelief.

“What did you say to me?” he demands. For a second, I regretted having said anything at all. Then I decide to settle into my hallucinations.

“I said that I don't think your gun likes you. Something about not being creative.” At this point, the clerk is just staring back and forth from me to the robber, the paper bag stuffed with fives and ones still in his shaking hands.

I think the robber must be a little shocked at what I said. Who could blame him? What sort of person with any kind of sanity calmly suggests to a robber in a liquor store that his gun doesn't approve of his crimes? Well, I'll tell you that right then, the man lowers his gun for maybe a second or two, about ready to cock it and fire at me. Instead it goes off, and he shoots his own foot.

The gun drops to the floor with a clank as the robber screams and hops around on his good foot. The gun, however, seemed satisfied, saying “I've been wanting to do that for the past three hours!”

The clerk, bag still in hand, stares at me and says, “You're crazy, man! Thank you!”

I nod, smiling slightly as I tear open my pack of gum and take a piece out of its wrapper. As I'm lifting the piece of gum to my mouth, I hear, “My mission in life is complete! Thank you!” followed by tiny muffled screams as I chew. I wince at the screams, which eventually stop as I keep chewing, and put the pack back in my pocket.

Later as I'm being questioned by the police, who had captured the robber not far from the store still hopping around on his uninjured foot, they ask me what possessed me to speak out during the robbery like I did. The answer is simple.

“All I wanted was some gum.”