You spend forty-five seconds unwrapping a piece of gum like you're defusing a bomb, pop it in your mouth, and immediately start chewing with the enthusiasm of someone who just discovered sugar. By minute two, your jaw is working a small, flavorless pebble that tastes like the smell of a rubber shoe. You keep chewing anyway because throwing it out feels like admitting defeat to a piece of gum.

You've been chewing the same piece for twenty minutes, convinced it'll come back. It doesn't. Now you're just working your jaw like a cow processing a betrayal, waiting for sweetness that left the chat in 2003. Eventually you swallow it out of spite and immediately regret every choice that led to this moment.

You spend four minutes convincing yourself the flavor will come back if you just chew harder, like you're working a second job. By minute five you're grinding your molars like you're trying to crack a walnut for evidence. You finally spit it out and immediately feel betrayed—not by the gum, but by yourself for believing in it.