My mom taught me how to blow bubbles with bubble gum when I was 5 years old, sparking a years-long obsession with gum.  I loved trying different flavors of gum: orange, grape, strawberry, Fruit Stripe (anyone remember this?), lime, bubble gum flavor, you name it.

I was so obsessed with different flavors of gum that I developed a rather odd and disgusting habit which sounds so horrific to me now.  When I found an especially tasty morsel of gum, I would stop chewing it before all the flavor left, then stick the wad on the underside of a small card table I had in my room.  At any given time, I would have between 6 to maybe 10 wads of chewed gum under that table.  When I wanted to experience the flavor of a gum again, I would pry the gum off the underside of the table, then go to the bathroom sink and run the gum under steaming hot water until it softened up.  Once the gum was heated up, I’d pop it in my mouth and chew happily away.

I definitely doubt that the water was hot enough to disinfect the gross little clumps of gum, and I think it’s a miracle that I didn’t become ill from that unsanitary habit!

Is anyone else brave enough to admit to a strange or gross habit they might have had when they were children?