Goddamn you, Trident Superpack, you’ve broken my heart. When I saw you at the grocery checkout, I thought you were a (very modest) dream come true. You were supposed to be the breath-freshening behemoth in my mastication arsenal. I wouldn’t be obliged to buy a new pack every week. I would have lots to share, doling them out to friends and strangers and the odd leper like some turbo benevolent, gum-toting Jesus. I saw the word “super” and imagined a hulking package of delight, crammed to bursting with minty freshness. And then I noticed that you offered TWO kinds of mint — Winter and Spear, respectively — in a single pack and I swooned.
“I am stoked like fire,” I said. The cashier didn’t even look at me.
I hurried home to unwrap it (it is wrapped, which should have been an obvious sign), expecting a single brick sized parcel containing roughly 900 sticks of gum and endless, chewy enjoyment. Instead, I found this:
Pictured: BETRAYAL
Oh, that’s right. That’s right, you soulless snack harlots, you got me again. I was seduced by your coy presentation and comic book-inspired product title. I thought the wrapper was in place because you were modest. I thought you were protecting me from myself because seeing a pack of gum so super in a state of nature would drive me mad with lust. Well, it worked. But what the hell is this? No, what is it? I’ll tell you what it is. It’s two packs of normal sized Trident gum GLUED TOGETHER, back to back, the candy equivalent of motherfucking PigeonRat. Each opens on their respective sides, the flaps spreading out like the wings of a Ptrollodactyl, cawing “LOL! LOL! LOL!” at me as it flies away, crapping.
Is this my comeuppance for a life steeped in vice and nearly indifferent literacy? Did some titty-giggling mongoloid get hold of a glue gun and decide it was craft hour at the factory? Why do you hate me?
I know I’m ultimately to blame for my own naivete, like the pantless young woman who prances off alone in the night to explore the mouldering basement of a haunted whorehouse. I should have expected this. But I blame you, too, Trident. You’re the ghost predator in that basement and while you didn’t force me to go exploring, you’ve just dick slapped me from beyond the grave of my impulsive gum purchasing decisions. I’m pretty sure this twi-flavored monstrosity is laughing at me even now, delighting in my misery, my woebegotten liberal arts college education and affection for minty fresh breath. It snorts in derision when I flip one side open, then the other, trying to choose between them, then mocks my accent when I don’t even have an accent.
But I’ll tell you what, Trident: once these million sticks are depleted, probably some time in 2034, I’m going back to Orbit Mint Mojito. She’s my pretty lady and she treats me right. Sure the packaging is a little ostentatious, the taste a little too Katy Perry “Ca-li-for-nia girls, we’re unforgettable. Daisy Dukes, bikinis on top” blasting through the open windows of your teal Hyundai Accent hatchback, but fuck it. They’ve never pulled these kinds of shenanigans and you damn well know it.
