Monday, October 22, 2007

DONT CHEW THE GUM

Fellow blogger Scott saw the awesome contents of my '87 Topps Football pack and was so inspired that he stated he might chew the gum in his own pack. I thought it was a joke until he stated it again in his '89 Bowman pack review. I just want to state for the record, DON'T DO IT. Those things aren't Twinkies, those chalky sticks of gum were never meant to be consumed after a certain period of time has elapsed. The time it takes for the factory to seal the wrapper and place the packs in the box is about the shelf life on that stuff. If you don't believe me, here's visual proof:

Does that look chewable to you? Go ahead and click on it to get the full visual impact. After a certain period of time the molecular structure begins to change and it transforms into something not of this world. Kind of like Melvin Junko in The Toxic Avenger after he takes a dive into the vats of Toxic Waste. (warning: link is skeery and gory in case your work don't like that stuff) Yeah Melvin is a hero, but do you really want to chew on him? If that doesn't convince you take a gander at what it did to the card:

That's not gum damage, that's a whole new lifeform devouring that card like the kids on the raft in Creepshow 2. You want that in your mouth? Even the new gum in Heritage packs goes south rather quick, look at this stuff from a box of Heritage I opened a couple years ago:

That gum is hermetically sealed in plastic, and it's still turning all sorts of funky colors. If you're still not convinced that such an innocent little pink stick of gum could be so evil, here's one more bit of evidence: a 1988 pack of O-Pee-Chee.

120 Kirby Puckett
149 Ken Howell
175 Kevin Bass
181 Mariano Duncan
189 Bob Dernier
87 Casey Candaele rookie cup
82 Dion James

That thing is stuck tight to Kirby like the critter on John Hurt's face in Alien. It's even turned the color of The Blob. No, not the good version with Steve McQueen, the cheezy 80's remake version. Look at that mess! THE GUM HAS BONDED MOLECULARLY TO KIRBY. Nope, it couldn't decide to eat Casey Candaele, it had to go after the only good card in the pack. Let's do our best to try to save Kirby.

Well, it looks like Kirby will live and he didn't even lose a limb, but he will have the scars from this terrifying encounter forever. He got off easy, one of the other cards in this group of O-Pee-Chee packs I bought a while back was completely devoured by the monster gum. I'd post a scan, but it turned sentient and escaped. Heed my warning, and DON'T CHEW THE GUM!

5 comments:

  1. I opened a box of 1987 Topps with some co-workers a few months back. A couple of us (including myself) tried a few pieces of the 20-year-old gum and, while it wasn't very tasty, I am still here to tell the tale. Although I wouldn't recommend that anyone else try this.

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  2. I couldn't chew the gum. It disintegrated in my mouth!

    Scott

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  3. It turns into powder once the degraded chemicals hit your saliva.

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  4. I tried the gum out of a pack of 78 Topps a couple years ago. I knew it was going to be bad, but something about nearly 30 year old gum was intriguing, so I had to try it. To say the least, I couldn't even get it into anything but jagged pieces of hard, gross-tasting pink stuff.

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  5. I love this post. One of the best commentaries on gum I've ever seen. The gum looked a bit like spam to me on first glance. And I love how other commenters ignored your advice anyway and just had to try it for themselves...but I think it needs to be topped off with a YouTube video of someone chewing it for full effect.

    Putting (unwrapped) gum along with the cards is a tribute to the innocent days of collecting. I miss those days.

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