Oh Woes

My gum's all melted.

I don't chew as a habit, but I do like the odd piece while I drive. All I could salvage from the wrapper was a half of a piece.

Which leads me to my philosophy on why people sweat the small stuff.

When something's supposed to be easy (say chewing a piece of gum on the drive to the bank), if it doesn't proceed from point A to B, the stress and frustration produced will be inordinate compared to the action- mammothly out of proportion at times.

When something's supposed to be hard (say extricating your leg from a shark's mouth), the situation is inherently chockful of difficulty, the stress and frustration are more likely to be in keeping with the crisis.

Tangent: I love sharks and shark stories. I came to this affection later in life, but just in time to coincide with my nephew's (his has since waned). He had a pack of trading cards of weird looking sharks and offered me some. Much as I never want to take something from a kid (generosity in a child kills me), I took some of them and posted them in my classroom- such is my love of sharks.

I'm also frustrated that I gave in to advertising and bought the blighted gum because the commercials have the model doing all sorts of risky things- being blasted by jets of orange liquid, falling into a futuristic abyss, or vibrating on millions of ball-bearings- which somehow connect to the thrill of chewing the gum.

I'm a sucker.