Dear Doily: What’s the Deal with Gum Control?

Dear Doily,

What’s the deal with gum control?

It’s one of those hot-button issues that’s consumed our news cycles for years at this point. It seems like everyone’s taken a stand: politicians, celebrities, even normally reputable newspapers like The Onion and Breitbart.

But what even is it?

For your average Joe, myself for instance, the words themselves don’t even make sense. Controlling gum? Or gums? I’ve never even been able to follow which one they’re always yammering on about. Kind of seems like something only all those young Millennials would care about, if you know what I mean. But even back in the ‘90s, my Millennial girlfriend didn’t care about all this — she was just obsessed with kiddy stuff like finishing high school.

As far as I can tell, gum and gums are just both not anything to really worry about. I mean, everyone’s got gums. And who hasn’t chewed a stick of gum once or twice? No harm there, the way I see it. Though who knows what my dentist would say, if you know what I mean!

And for all the media’s blabbering, what’s even changed in the last ten or twenty years? Gum’s still sold at every convenience store I’ve ever been to, and gums are still doing their thing just fine in all of our mouths.

I’m still not sure what to really make of any of it, but it feels like more and more lately, everyone’s trying to get everyone else to take some kind of a stand. So I guess, if I have to make my choice, here it is: I, as a proud citizen of the United States of America, am firmly against gum control. I think everyone should get gum, and gums! Well, we already get gums. See, that’s why none of this makes any sense…

Thanks for the help,

Average Jerry

Dear Average Jerry,

We suggest you read the Second Amendment to clear this up a bit. Just keep in mind that language evolves, and when the Founding Fathers wrote “to bear arms,” they meant what we would now say as “to chew gum with your teeth which are attached to your gums, as a bear would with honey.” Pretty simple after you realize that!

Yours Truly,

The Doily Allergen