Wednesday, October 10, 2007

Grape Bubble Gum and Jury Duty aka Revenge of the Nerd

It seems to be a random thought kind of day here inside my head. It started over at Eclectic Spaghetti where I made a weird comment about “Eat Something Purple Day”. I talked about grape bubble gum and its extremely strong smell. That made me think of the time I was practically forced to chew that very gum in my own defense. Set back a spell and listen while I tell of my only time sitting on a jury. It was, oh…24 years ago or so. The case isn’t important here, nor is it very interesting. What I wanted to talk about was how back in the day, when you were in the little conference room doing deliberations, people could smoke. In the jury I sat on, at least three or four people were hardcore cigarette fiends and one guy smoked cigars! It got so nasty in that room. I’m no hater. If you want to smoke, well, light up Johnny…just maybe not right in my airspace, m’kay? It was nothing I felt right complaining to anyone about, but it was driving me batty. I decided to try and find something really annoying that I could do to bug everyone else, specifically the Smokey Joe Club. I was a young 20 and my ideas on the getting to people front were fairly limited. What was my genius solution? Great question. On lunch break of the second day, I went to a local drugstore and purchased some of that very, very grape-y bubble gum. I thought to myself, “I am going to chew this gum so obnoxiously. Between the sound of my chomping and the sticky sweet smell, surely someone will say something to me…then I will be able to mention the smoking!” Gawd, I’m so retahded! Well, it felt like a good idea at the time. No one said a word, of course. I’m now aware that the smokers probably couldn’t smell much of anything…and I tend to doubt that I pulled off really, truly obnoxious gum chewing. Luckily, the case was resolved at the end of the second day of being in that room. I believe it was Friday and we wanted to finish the thing off and get on with life. Bottom line: Defendant, not guilty. l.b., guilty of being a total nerd.

4 comments:

dmarks said...

In the land of the smoke-spewing, the grape bubble gum lady is queen.

Tara said...

Your point was worthy, though. I would've liked a smoker to say, "Hey stop that's annoying" and your being able to prove your point. :)

That wasn't a weird comment for the holiday, it was perfect! You eat gum..sort of, at least you chew it, right? And the gum was purple.

I saw an episode of Dirty Jobs where he was helping guys clean up from Katrina. Some smells were so bad in the houses they were cleaning up, that some guys were chewing really potent gum to take away some of the mildew and rot smell of the hurricane aftermath.

Churlita said...

Remember those days? Even in grade school, all the teachers smoked and when any of them left their break room, they were followed by a huge cloud of smoke. Imagine that happening now.

laura b. said...

Dmarks: Finally! Someone who recongnizes my sovereignty!

Tara: Hey, thanks Tara. I actually feel much less silly now....it did sort of make sense, didn't it!

Churlita: When I was a high school freshman our English teacher once smoked a cigar in class. He did it after we assured we wouldn't tell. NO teacher would do that now, no matter what the class said - haha!