To Chew or Not To Chew

Anyone that knows me knows that Smarties are among my absolute favorite candies. No, not British Smarties (which are like M&Ms)-- American Smarties, which are chalk-like candy wafers-- little more than tangy sugar and color:



This weekend, while shopping at K-Mart for some snacks to enjoy indoors (since it rained all weekend and we couldn't really go anywhere), I came across a bag of "Bubble Gum Smarties":



The bag didn't have any immediate outward indications of what the product actually entailed, so I assumed it was the classic Smarties candy-- just with a bubblegum flavor. After all, it's not unusual to find your favorite classic candy in a variety of flavors (like Skittles), right?

Right. Or so I thought.

Upon settling on the sofa to watch a movie, I opened up a roll and popped a couple of the Smarties into my mouth. Hmm... rather than being hard and brittle and "chalky" like I expected, they were soft and chewy. But they're not the first hard candy to come in soft and chewy form (think Jolly Ranchers and LifeSavers), so no real shock there. And they seemed to dissolve in my mouth okay, so I ate the entire roll. It wasn't until I was finishing up the last wafer in that roll that I realized that it was sticking to my teeth a bit. That made me raise an eyebrow, re-examine the package, and then make a dash for my computer.

A Google search on "bubble gum Smarties" yielded several pages that indeed confirmed what I feared I had done: I had eaten bubblegum.

Including the product page from the official Smarties website itself:http://www.smarties.com/products.html

Sigh... yeah, my tummy's gonna have fun processing that one. Luckily I realized my error after eating only one roll, and not the half-dozen I usually go through in one sitting. Count my blessings, I suppose...


(originally posted at: http://www.myspace.com/hellykwee/blog/223483682)