Almost Juvenalia

I wrote this story 9 years ago, published 8 years ago or so. Olden.
Unrelated entirely is that I went to my great Aunt Sally's 90th birthday party on Saturday. She wore blue shell earrings, and matching bracelets and necklace. She had blue sequins in her hair and wore a tiara. I told her, Sally, you look like the Little Mermaid. She said that's me! I'm Little Sally.






The Secret Life of Sally


I work across from Peter. My job is to pick all of the grapes from the grapevine after they

have been rinsed, and to toss them into an enormous bin. When the bin is full, I wheel it

away and collect an empty bin and new grapes. My hands have been purple for years.



Peter looks like he may be a bit older than me, but it is hard to tell with men. You

can’t determine if a man has had a baby by looking at him, you can’t gauge how much

sunbathing he had done in his youth like you can with a woman. Peter’s shoulder’s slope

a bit and he stands in such a way that makes him look shorter than he really is. His eyes

turn down at the outward corners, and his eyelashes go straight out and a bit down, rather

than up.



Because of my glass heart, I live alone. It would be far too complicated to explain to a

roommate. Even if I could get through all of the dreadful details of my incorrect anatomy,

it is certain that the listener would be frightened or disgusted. I do not pretend it would be

otherwise; though even if it were otherwise, and my living partner did not mind, I could

not bear the worry that he or she would constantly have about my heart shattering. They

would never want to excite me. I would rather live with a person who did not know at all,

so at least we could enjoy one another and live in happiness and friendship.



Still, I could not have a lie like that. I am an honest person.





Peter walks me home when the bell has rung and we have cleaned the counters and our

hands. He does this out of the kindness of his own heart. Because Peter is so good to me,

I imagine that his heart must be made of glass just as mine is! We are so much alike in

our concern for other people. I could never ask him if it is true, though. That would

be inappropriate and rude.



I detest rude people.



At my work, there is sometimes music. The boy who runs the deliveries plays a fiddle

while he waits for us to finish. Sophie is a very old woman who dances to the music with

her wrinkly eyes closed. She sings “da-da-dee, da-da-dum, da-da-da-da-dee, da-dee, da-

dee” to the fiddler’s tune. Her job is to paint lettering on the labels and to glue the labels

onto the bottles.



Today when the fiddler began playing and Sophie took up her usual dancing and

dreaming, someone across the great room dropped a bottle. These are my most dreaded

moments. Instantly, my hands flew to my chest and I ran to the washroom at the far end



of the room. I felt for a broken piece, waiting for the pain of the pieces of my heart to cut

through me. The pain did not come. I felt the regular movement of the hinged chambers

and heard the almost-silent “ching, ching” of the trap-doors opening and closing. I

returned to my grapes before any pay was lost.



“Sally, are you all right?” Peter asked me after I had plucked my way through three

bunches of grapes. I nodded, without looking up at him.



“I think I should walk you home today,” he told me, sounding very resolute. He is so kind

to me.





When it was time to leave, and I had wrapped myself in my coat and my handbag was

found (I am forever losing it), Peter and I headed for the street. It had snowed while we

were inside, and the night looked brighter and somewhat yellow. I felt like apologizing

to someone for stepping on the perfect snow, but I did not know who to direct the

apology to. I decided to apologize to myself, since I was the one who felt the sadness

for the snow. I wondered for a moment if the snow felt it, if it felt the compressions and

crunch of my steps. It was made from so many tiny shards of ice, glimmering here and

there.



“What for?” Peter asked me suddenly.



“Pardon?” I asked.



“You said sorry.”



I felt embarrassed. Surely he must know all about me from my fumble. He was a clever

man, in addition to being so sweet.



“It was for the snow.” I told him this and waited nervously for his response. I knew that

the moment had come! Beside me, Peter had stopped walking.



“Sally, would you like to come to my home tonight?” He looked directly at me as he

said this and I was nodding immediately. My mind raced for an excuse, but none came

quickly enough. Peter looked pleased.



“Wonderful,” he said seriously, and we changed direction at the next street. The snow

here had already been walked on, too. I was careful to step into the footprints

that had already been pressed. Sometimes it caused me to walk ahead of Peter, and sometimes it caused me

to walk behind him.





Peter unlocked the door to his apartment and let me in first. I removed my coat and

hung it and my handbag up on one of the hooks that were available close by. I removed

my winter boots and was horrified to see my ungainly first and second toes protruding

through a tear in my brown stockings. I pulled the material over my toes and curled my

toes under to keep it in place.



“This way,” Peter said in his gentle voice. I walked behind him with my toes still curled.

In Peter’s kitchen there were two chairs and a small round table. He lives alone as well. A

rush of glee filled me to the top of my hair. He was like me somehow! I knew he would

understand.



Meanwhile, my lower abdomen had become more than irritating and my body was

making an urgent demand despite the delicate circumstances.



“Peter, may I use your washroom?” I asked, mortified that he knew I would be relieving

myself in his very own toilet, only paces from where he waited. I would run the faucet so

he would not hear the sounds of me.



“This way,” he said, pointing to one of two doors that led from the kitchen. I walked

towards it with my curled toes. In my rush to use the toilet, I forgot to run the water. Oh,

I wanted to cry. I looked at the window; maybe I could climb out IT and leave. I could

send a note to Peter and he would understand. The sight of my largest toe announcing

itself from my stocking once more reminded me that my boots were by the door, and that

outside the snow waited. I sighed, fixing my stocking again. I exited the washroom and

sat once more. Peter had made tea for us both.



“Is there something wrong with your foot?” Peter asked me. “You were hobbling.”

Again! I had foiled myself twice in as many moments. I had never known Peter to be so

intrusive. Perhaps he assumed we were on intimate terms already. I forgave him instantly.



“My foot is fine, just a habit,” I said. I sipped the tea. We sat in silence for a little while. I

studied the pattern of the table top, a fake stone finish. There were a few stains, but it was

kept very clean.



“I would like to tell you something, Sally. I would like to share a secret with you.” I

forgot the tea and looked up, nodding. Peter was looking jittery and his cheeks were

pinker than usual.



“I think it would be good to share this secret with you. It would help me very much. I

appreciate your listening.” I was rapt. Was he even aware? He must have known how

exhilarating this moment would be for me. I was certain he had planned it all out, to

surprise me in this very way by giving me just what I wanted so badly. Peter was too

good! This secret was so shameful for Peter that he daren’t tell anyone other than me,

me who was forever understanding and humane. Peter drew a breath, and I did as well

with my excitement.



“I am not who you think I am. There is much more to me than these rooms and my job,

and my walk with you home every night.” I waited, nodding, though he looked away

from me. “I have a wife and I have a child, far from here. I have not seen nor spoken to

them for many years. I left them both without a word. I send money to them regularly, so

they know I am alive. I suppose you could say there are two of me; there is the ghost, and

there is the man. I think they only share a name between them.



“I don’t know why I left; I just found myself gathering my things very early one morning

while my wife was sleeping. I went to the train station and bought a ticket and started

again. My life was new again, or it could have been new again. While I waited for my

train that morning, I remember very well standing behind a window and not seeing my

reflection. I saw it only in the moments when another person passed the glass outside,

and the picture of me appeared against their figure.” Peter let out a long breath and sat

back against his chair. I folded my purple hands together and lowered them to my lap as

he looked up.



“That’s fine, I think that’s fine Peter,” I said hurriedly. I kept nodding.



“I don’t think it is fine. But it is done, and here we are.” Peter looked very tired at this

moment. I sipped my tea. Tremendous! I could scarcely believe my own good fortune.

How wonderful he was! He regretted everything. He had to leave, that was plain. His

wife must have been an awful, loveless woman. She had to be, for a man as good as Peter

to need to leave her. The baby must have been ugly, not just its face, but its very soul.

Peter must have looked at it and seen the face of the devil himself. How could any man

be expected to rear a wicked baby?



I felt such a warmth growing in me. Peter was so dear, so true. I reached into my pocket

and withdrew a tissue, for I had begun to weep at his goodness.



“I’m sorry, Sally!” Peter exclaimed. “I know it was an awful thing to do, but I was a

fraud, I had been lying the whole time and I could not do it any longer.”



I dried my tears and dabbed my liquidy nose, taking a sip of the tea to help me to

speak. “It was not awful. It was noble. Thank you for telling me.”



Peter’s whole face softened at once. He rose from his chair and came over to me. I

pushed my curled foot right under the table. Peter took my hands and pulled me to rise

as well. I covered my exposed toe with the other foot. I was certain Peter meant to kiss

me; this was terrible, I was not prepared. I had eaten a fish sandwich for my lunch and had too much coffee

in the afternoon. I put my head to my chest. My chin touched my sternum, where my incorrect

glass heart was working ferociously. Peter put his hands on my shoulders and squeezed

them. This was the first time any man had touched me so deliberately. I was immediately

so excited, and then afraid at my own excitement. Peter touched my hair. I angled my

mouth and breath downward.



“Perhaps you could tell me a secret too,” he said kindly. “I will understand.” At this Peter

went to embrace me, as men embrace women all the time. I wanted to fall into it, despite

my own fear. I wanted to fall into it warmly and sweetly, standing there in the kitchen

like any woman might. Did Peter hold other women in this way in this kitchen often? I

purposely shifted my thoughts away. No, he did not. I could feel that Peter was warm

as he moved closer. He squeezed my shoulders again and I knew that he was stronger

around his arms than I had thought, even with his sloping shoulders and poor posture.



I stepped back. He could not do it.



I walked backwards away from him and turned for the door. I was gasping for air. I

shoved my feet into my boots and put my coat on and took my handbag.



“Good-bye!” I called. “Thank you, Peter!” I was stumbling the down the street, and even

now I am walking to my home for the first time in winter without Peter accompanying

me. I am so pleased with tonight, and with my heroic encounter with Peter. I know we

understand one another. He is such a good man. I am so fortunate to have been able to let

him see himself against the glass of my heart.

The Pool

(I did this as a presentation with a laser pointer last night, but I think you can still kind of get it without a laser pointer).

The Pool





In 1992, I walked home from school every day the same way. I was in the habit of counting my steps by picking a handful of inedible berries from trees that grew near my school. I would toss one berry, watch it roll along the street to where it came to rest. Passing each one, i would count to 4, 4 times, and on the fourth 4 I would toss the next berry. There was no other measurement scored by this clumsy bowling process other than to provide the consistent reassurance of familiar cycles of the number 4.


John Grix lived in this direction, about 11 houses away. He was two or three years older than me, I'm not sure because he failed at least one grade. His personality from the ages of 7 years old to 17 years old was defined for me by his likelihood to whip tennis balls or rocks at the legs of children who rode past on their bikes from a standing position at the side of the road, and alternately by hiding sticks behind his back and approaching in a lunge to ram them in between bike spokes, causing the bikes and subsequent perched children to fall over. Tennis balls to the leg, face or back from close range would sometimes follow. He had a perpetually sunburnt face with squinty eyes, high temples that pointed towards gel-spiked hair, and a nasal voice with a loose-jawed, Buffalo-area accent informed by the television channel WNEB that broadcast sitcoms during the after-school time slot.


Towards the very end of the school year that year when I was in grade 5, John Grix followed me home from a distance, catching up to me closer to my house. He hissed at me to catch my attention, and I pretended not to hear, trying just to count my steps and keep my eyes on the berry I was working toward. He caught up to me.

"Yo," he said, but it sounded like 'yaw'.

"Hi," I answered.

"I saw big tits walking down the street and I thought it was Lisa." Lisa lived this way, one street over, with her tiny grandmother in a little bungalow. She was a couple of years older than me and very sweet and easy going. She was often paired by teachers with a new student because she was friendly with everyone, even John Grix.

I considered that no way he thought that, because first of all, he was walking behind me, and wouldn't he have thought I saw a big butt coming down the street and thought etc etc., and besides I had blonde hair in a braid and was taller than Lisa, who had curly brown hair, always worn in a very tight ponytail. But instead I said "mm-hmm". John Grix stuck close. I walked faster.

"You scared, little girl?"


"No," I said, lying. "I have to get home to let my dogs out."

"Yo, your pool's open. I'm coming to swim in it."

"I'm not allowed to have people in the pool when my parents aren't home," I said, which was true.

"So?," he said, which sounded more like "sah". "I'm going to hop your fence and swim in your pool, and then I'm going to rip your shirt off to see your huge tits." He repeated this a few times, turning the phrases into a rap. "I'm gonna rip off your shirt and look at your tits in your pool." He gave me some shoves from the side and reached for my humiliating, too-young-to-wear-a-bra-but-i-have-to-wear-a-bra sportsbra strap and snapped it hard. Up until shortly before then I had been telling myself that it was all just belly and who can define baby fat anyhow, but there was softball and a dreaded endurance run coming up. "I'm gonna rip that shit too." He was having a lot of fun with this. I was not.

I started to feel a dizzy, dumbfounding, heart-rattling fear and tried to be fast, but if you have had those dreams where you need to run and can't, I have the unfortunate news that sometimes this situation can occur in waking life as well. Besides, he would have tripped me.

Appearing ahead like an angel sent from heaven was a neighbour I loved, Mrs Whelan, who was into books and knew my mom and grandmother. She had taken care of me a couple of times when I was sick and my mom had to go to work, cleaning up buckets of vomit and everything, no complaints. She even took me to see the movie Dick Tracy in the movie theatre with her grandson, John Keldie, who later became a lacrosse player and was a Levi's model for a little while, because she wanted to see it. John Grix drifted away. "See you at your pool," he told me and walked in his affected limp walk towards his house by way of the ditch.


I remained scared of John Grix's promise to swim in my pool for the rest of the summer, and felt a safety no amount of counting rounds of the number 4 could provide when we closed it up for the fall.


In the spring of 1993, my baby sister was born. After the summer, when I started school again that year, I picked her up from her baby-sitter's in a stroller while the weather was warm enough, and would watch her until my mom and stepdad came home from work. I was extra-terrified that John Grix would threaten the baby somehow, and would walk home along different routes each day.



This is a photo taken from the roof of my mom's house in 1994.



To the left of this photo is my grandmother's backyard, which shared this big tree here with our yard. I mowed both lawns. When Pepper Ann was over on Saturday mornings, it was time to mow. That summer my stepdad, who was truly by then becoming just my dad, showed me how to climb onto the roof. I would sit or lie on it, listening to my walkman. Over the red fence was Grant Bittner's house. Grant lived with his single mom and two little sisters. They moved in during the winter of 1994. Sometimes his mom locked him out of the house and he would yell from outside, and break a window to get back in. She called the cops on him a few times.



We had two dogs, little-to-medium sized, who would stay in the backyard during the day in the summer. They are in this photo over here. I should mention that after a fruitless power struggle, John Grix and Grant BIttner partnered up in a criminal alliance. I had forgotten about him for awhile, and while maintained an oily presence at our junior high school, I stayed busy enough with other things that I did not have to encounter him all that often. Though he did live close by.



One day I came home from being out on my bike in the early evening, to find my Uncle Garry in the backyard with my mom. Uncle Garry was crouching over Pumpkin, the smaller dog, trying to give her CPR. Cody, the slightly bigger dog, was out of sight. In the juniper bushes, which you can see here, there were bricks around the soil that hadn't been there before. The pool was also full of bricks.



The vet thought that Pumpkin had died of a heart attack from fear, after Cody was killed when bricks hit his ribs, rupturing his internal organs, and smashing his head. He estimated also that she had been under this stress for some hours, to induce a lethal response.



I felt a similar hot, dizzy fear as I had felt when John Grix had promised to swim in my pool. This time there was no Mrs Whelan to shuffle over and wave her magic wand of protective disapproval to make him disappear, in her filthy bare feet and old shorts.

The next day I sat on the deck of the public swimming pool, which was in a park very close by, just over here. My mom did the pool man's taxes, so we had this above-ground one installed very cheap.


Angel Smith was a punk girl with crazy dyed hair and patched up clothes who made rude jokes about boys, in her late teens. She lived here, next to Grant Bittner. Angel did PCP and hung out in the park all night, and while she did bad teenager stuff, was never scary to me. She liked me. When I was 5 she asked me what colour my eyes were, and I said "grass green", and from then on she thought I was a funny kid. Angel was at the pool in her bikini with a torn Ramones tank top over it. She had a tuft of green hair at this time, and wore green elastics on her braces to match, more lime green than grass green. One summer a few years before, she partied in my mom's house with a short-tenured babysitter. She invited Aaron Moran over, a headbanger who lived next to Lisa, this way. He blasted Run DMC and Aerosmith's "Walk This Way" on our stereo and lip-synched in a really hypnotizing way. I let him and the other stoner teenagers drink all of my coveted Cokes and even eat my mom's off-limits Jenny Craig food. They put on hilarious plays with my Cabbage Patch dolls and I totally loved them until the babysitter was fired for letting me shave my legs. One time Aaron Macilroy was peeing in my bathroom and I opened the door by accident. I remember that he kept his sunglasses on while he peed.


At the pool, while I sat on the deck, Angel asked me about my dogs. I remember very well not confirming that Grant Bittner and John Grix had thrown bricks at them for an afternoon, only that the pile of bricks in Grant's backyard was a little smaller, and that there were bricks all over my backyard, and that the bigger dog, Cody, had been crushed and that bricks were on his body and around it. I left out altogether washing blood and gut-bits away with water from a bucket so we wouldn't get flies. I mostly didn't cry when I told her.


"Fuckin dicks. Fucking Cody and Pumpkin. Those fuckin dicks," she repeated, floating on her back in the water. She could spit little fountains of pool in arcs. The pool smell in the warm air was nice and felt soothing while I grieved.

And then, I witnessed a moment of perfect, golden chivalry. John Grix and Grant Bittner blobbed onto the pool deck from the boys' change room. I remember the taste of Sprite in my mouth, and trying not to choke on it. Angel Smith hoisted herself from the pool onto the deck in a cool easy teenage way, breaking no strides, until she was right in the face of Grant Bittner. Grant was already 6 feet tall, and built like 3 full bags of wet compost stacked on top of each other. Angel, compact and wild, yelled in Grant's face, very loud, very full of braces and gums, very intense, many swears involved. He backed away from her, pushing her here and there. She was like an angry little plough, though. She pushed him, her body at a 45 degree angle until he was at the edge of the deep end of the pool. Lifeguards blew whistles, but were afraid to get involved.

Then Angel would up and executed the cleanest, most cinematic right hook you have seen. Grant Bittner landed in the water, causing a little tsunami, roiling and humiliated. John Grix was nearby, deeply not protecting his friend. Angel grabbed his arm and dragged him the pool ledge, kicked him hard with her wet bare foot, pulled down his swim trunks and pushed him in. "Piece of shit!" she screamed at them.


She was thrown out in a hurry and banned from the pool for the rest of the summer. She swam in my little pool instead.



When I went to high school, I did odd jobs in the English department. It was a bad school, and I think the teachers were happy to have a reader. One time, I was paired up with a student from an older grade to help him with his schoolwork. John Grix showed up for only one of those meetings, and barely said anything. I think maybe he couldn't read, not illiterate, but not very well at all. He mostly looked at the ground or the ceiling. I waited for him to make fun of my chest, or backside, but it never happened.


Yesterday, my baby sister graduated from high school. The same high school that John Grix, Grant Bittner for just one year, Angel Smith, Aaron Macilroy, Lisa, my mom, my Uncle Garry, my stepdad, the lifeguards from the public pool, and I all went to.

SOAP REVIEW

"Dove go fresh cool moisture beauty bar, cucumber and green tea" with picture of a cucumber slice on the package.

*Laundered ice cream*


At the back of the fridge, there is a tin of Israeli pickles bought at the big grocery store at Bathurst and Lawrence on a Purim bissli run.




They're good. In order of deliciousness starting from most tasty, they fall: Smoke, Taco, Barbecue - which also has the best rotini / fusili shape - Pizza, Onion, and then Falafel. Falafel would be right after Barbecue but the cumin ripe-underarm poof that bloomed from the package every time it was nudged at all, even from the slight vibrations caused by walking lightly across the floor when it was squished way in the back of the cedar cupboards, clammed preventatively with a clothespeg, still, even then, *poof*, like a tiny Hiroshima, lands it at the end. Running up the stairs to catch the cat and put her on the deck before she throws up - *poof*. Drop a bag of onions on your foot - *poof*. Tasted pretty nice, though. Savoury, like the falafel course might diffuse through the mouth in Willy Wonka's Three Course Dinner Chewing Gum, but in a little chiplet. The crunch, perfection.

Also along the same aisle as the bissli were the Israeli pickles, which were inexpensive. Everyone else in the grocery store picked up a tin like a grocery store holy grail item**, and since it is nice to have pickles around, I did as well. I called jarring and pickling as the new knitting two years ago, and I felt slightly smug for it. Now I see I am wrong: jarring and pickling is the new cupcakes. Sorry. When we came home, a couple of pickles were eaten, and they were good. They were very salty, not too tart, with no garlic to speak of. Made from wild cucumbers, my experience eating them while alone was a little different. Mostly oblong and slightly curved, there was not a single aspect of the little pickles that was directly indicative of something rude, but rather several subtle things combined to be vaguely rude all at once. I pulled the biggest pickle out of the tin with my fingers. I bit it, and it squirted cold brine down my chin and dribbled onto the floor. It was brownish green, and a little soft. The pickles floated loose and locomoted just barely, wobbling in their light khaki bath. I was alone: I could have licked the pickle if I had wanted to, making it last longer, making it less squirty and drippy, but just couldn't.





So these little goodies were pushed to the back of the fridge with some vitamin supplements and while not forgotten entirely, they certainly were not invited back out into the open to air themselves. Yet every day, when I would open the fridge and gawk for some moments, I could see them peripherally green-lighting themselves with their packaging. These cucumbers have been somewhere in my mind, squashed conveniently into my subconscious, for months.

When it came time to buy soap recently, I blundered around the Dove shelves for a few moments. I feel about Dove soap the way I feel about Courtney Love. So good, so effective yet soft, so dear to my heart, comes so close and...a little disappointing. But I love Dove and I love Love and I'll stand by both for whatever stupid campaign or train-wreck they blossom from, because love is forgiving. My sister was born when I was in grade 7, and suddenly there were cloudy bars of Baby Dove like powdered white chocolate in the bathroom on special reserve. It is like ice cream. It is such a nice, lush thing, as an object, deposits its weight in the hand with a design-wise contour, and good for dry skin. It's wonderful, I love it. I don't love their ad campaign. I used to take walking trips to the drugstore to buy my own soap just after this time, and bought all the flavours of Dove to have lined up in my closet to choose from, all frosted pastel like a line-up of Lawrence Welk ladies or a group of sister mermaids. You choose your favourite. Light purple, if you could find it, was rare and special.






Also in grade 7, Courtney Love started dotting up my radar, and at that time, she was pretty intoxicating and interesting, like a messy Barbie with a real heart and she knew, it seemed, just about everything. Things change, it is ok, and still I'll love her always, because there aren't conditions on real love.



(in this article, the interviewer speaks to her while she is in the bath, and I will never forget the way he described her breasts as being like cakes of white soap in the water).

So recently, in the drugstore, gaping before the offerings of the Dove empire,  I reached for the little box with the photo-real fresh cucumber slice on the the bottom right corner. Why? Now I think it is the mental seep of the Osem pickles. Never feeling quite right about them, put together with soap, the solution is self-contained: soap is clean divisible by cucumber soap = enjoy your pickles. The associations are bled into one another now, so I imagine Courtney Love applying not lipstick out of focus in the Miss World video, but rubbing a salty pickle over her lips. This was an action that was hard to avoid when eating them.

This soap is very nice, not too creamy, fresh scent without being marine or musky. I like it quite well. I have a rash right now, but I don't think it is from this.

**wrong metaphor.

GUM REVIEW

"(New!) Trident Layers - Green Apple, Golden Pineapple"

- Coppery Apple


I first met Trident Layers, handsome-as-anything little striped slices of gum in the style of the KFC Double Down after a free sample pack floated onto the kitchen counter for the pink variety. Hello, boys. This review is for the green variety.

Circulating free samples of luxury products is a virtue I champion in any company, and I'll tell you what: it works. Slouching home from work last week I buckled into a Hasty Market and instead of a can of Fresca, which I had my mind set on, I was pulled over to the gum rack by a silent snake charmer's call. Layers was my new voodoo master.

If I hadn't tasted the freebies, I never would have elected this arbitrarily. It's spendy stuff, over $2.00 for a package. The jacket itself is a smart little work of design. It opens like a book, elegant-cigarette-case-style like you've seen over the past year in gum trends, and the fat, silver papered pieces are fixed in place on their little shelf with a dot of some silicone adhesive. They don't lean into one another like exhausted sheep, and it's true, I found myself respecting them a little more as individual things with dignity every time I flipped open the booklet and found them all gleaming and upright. The embossed green-on-green lettering is glossy and appealed to me as fresh the way a newly mown lawn does. A lawn I did not even have to mow.

The first chew opened with a soft, though still aldente consistency, and a brightly tart apple full-mouth flavour. Very nice, I thought. The pineapple note is a little tricky to pick up, but I think it is present in the slightly metallic minty offset, and I can only assume it is represented visually in the darker green "meat" of the gumwich, according to the real-fruit analogy visual on the package. I couldn't dectect any syprupy pineapple accords on their own. I feel like those are best found in wine gums, and there is no wine gum in this chew.

It is the business of gum primarily to freshen the mouth, and we associate a fresh mouth with a cool mentholated sensation. For anyone though who has had a swig of juice just after brushing their teeth and wondered, mid-gag, why the vomit-taste in their mouth had flooded front to back rather than the tradition back to front route, the toe-curling sensation of acid with mint can make you feel like you've lost at life a bit.

If it were 1997 or before, I would have spit the little blob across the basement at this point and gone upstairs for a grilled cheese, 10 oreos and a half a 2 litre bottle of Sprite, chugged vertically to clear my unsophisticated, chub-padded palate, then watched some back-to-back episodes of Little House on the Prairie to induce a crying jag to cleanse the experience entirely. A few more chews in, I am happy to report that the flavour combination in Green Apple, Golden Pineapple is more closely aligned to the lime with spearmint of a julep than with Crest and Minute Maid. More fusion than clash. The diffuse aroma from the mouth is good, good enough that you may be asked within a fair 10 minutes of application what it is you have in your mouth, and perhaps passively encouraged to please share.

My only complaint with Trident Layers' Green Apple, Golden Pineapple is their swish-print subtitular claim "With *Real* Fruit Flavour". That's nice, and in terms of the visuals of the package, the well-kerned brush-stroke typeface makes it look like your rosewood cane-gripping mentor has just whispered a nugget of valuable life wisdom to you with a wink, that you'll repeat to your own proteges in your own golden years as you battle an earnest throat-lump. With real fruit flavour, little one.

Seriously? Kill me. Who goes to gum for real fruit? One of the great genius compositions in flavour, Coca Cola, is a sublime work of beauty and imagination. It replicates nothing in nature, and still it is, ahh, so choice. It is the careful crafting a human idea, a dream made real, and that is why I will love it till the day I die. I would be so impressed if Trident would just let Layers be what it is: interesting, brightly tasty, and very fake, without the stamp of structured authenticity to lure salivating chewers to its soft, and carefully manufactured, bosom. Hello boys, indeed.