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| Allegedly Gum, Allegedly Fun |
On top of the hill to the East of our house were some of the richest people in town at the time. My sister, always the enterprising one, would often take me up the hill for a little game we liked to call 'beg for candy, treats and gum'. We didn't call it that but that is what it would be called if it was named literally based on what we did.
We must have been good at it too because I remember getting candy and specifically pink sugary bubble gum several times. There was a lady who thought it was hilarious to give us gum and then ask us to blow bubbles with it which usually ended with us spitting the gum out onto the ground as we tried to inflate it. Not given to waste we would pick it up, dust it off and pop it back in. After several failed attempts her husband took pity on us. He showed me how to stretch the gum flat over my lips and blow an external bubble.
This was a sticky slobbery way to blow a bubble but for those of us that were four and lacked any lingual-labial dexterity it was a little victory. After I learned the trick I would show anyone I could how to do it which usually made people laugh which made me self-conscious. My mom said they were laughing because I was cute but that didn't soothe my performance anxiety and I never demonstrated the face bubble in public again. Those laughter louts were only cheating themselves, it was a great bubble. A great bubble.
