peevish mama

You would think that after eleven years of marriage, you know someone cold.  You think you know his idiosyncracies and quirks, his likes and dislikes, his pet peeves, his turn-ons.   You can smell mood changes on the wind, track shifting interests by the dog-eared pages of magazines, the cracked spines of books.  

But, but, but . . . then he starts in on something new, slowly at first . . . and then with increasing impunity, with nary a care for how I feel about it. Until the day when, in an act of unfettered defiance, he fills the front compartment of my minivan with the most flamboyant and shocking assortment of fruity gum I have ever laid eyes on.  You open the doors of my minivan and it smells like Chiquita Banana’s leotard after Sweatin’ to the Oldies.  Bluh.

Back in the day, if we had been going on a road trip, a Plenty Pack of blue Extra would have been all we needed to be happy.  Through our twenties, peppermint was the mainstay, although we occasionally ventured over to Trident – sometimes you simply want a smaller piece of gum in your mouth.  At some point during med school, Doctor Dash started experimenting with green gum and dark blue gum.  I can’t say I was happy, but I eventually learned to tolerate a piece of spearmint or wintergreen gum in a pinch.  Plus Dash had to study a lot, so I figured his little gum forays were a way to keep the monotony at bay.  Harmless.

Then things started getting weird.  I began to find crumpled wrappers guiltily stuffed into his pockets, strewn behind his bowl of loose change – paper wisps whispering a secret, smelling of something foreign and unwelcome.  I could no longer turn a blind eye and pretend I didn’t know.

There it was:  cold, hard evidence of Orange-mint. Melon-mint.  

Dash was dabbling in flavors that don’t exist in nature and are obviously the lewd invention of fast talking slick jicks with overdeveloped masticator muscles –  guys with shiny ties and lots of product in their hair who sit with their feet on their desks and pride themselves on being able to come up with flavor profiles that’ll knock the socks off Jamie Lynn Spears – Wrigley Company idea-men with loud voices and a low tolerance for any resistance from the lab guys, who they refer to as the nerkles, as in: “Tell that fucking nerkle I don’t give a shit if acai berries are combustible when you mix’em with spearmint! Make it happen!”

And it seems like the faster these guys come up with audacious concoctions, the faster Doctor Dash and a bevy of thirteen year old girls line up to buy them, eager to try the next big thing.  Oh my God!  This Pomegranate Passion is like sooooo amazing!  Oh my God, it’s like totally my new fave!  I am soooo over Bubblemint!

Call me old fashioned, but I just don’t think it is becoming for a man approaching forty to chew Maui Melon Mint, or Sangria Fresca, or Fabulous Fruitini.  His packs of gum should not be peach or pink or lime green.  He should not be co-mingling with a demographic that is all about the mall, sparkly lipgloss and Miley Cyrus.  It’s simply not appropriate.

Come back to the mint, Doctor Dash.