GET RID OF THE GUM.
GOD.
Is there any more effective way to look like a brainless cow and to make such sounds as to cause people around you to want to slap you silly?
Nope.
JUST GET RID OF THAT GUM, YOUNG LADY OR YOUNG MAN.
Spit if into my hand right now. *holding out hand*
There.
Amen!
It’s in that lovely category of things that I consider (snobbishly, perhaps) ‘low class’. Like letting doors slam behind you and shouting from room to room because you can’t be bothered to get up off your backside and walk 10 feet to speak to the other person. Especially if you snap the gum.
The only time gum-chewing is really not an issue is during take-off and landing.
I have to suggest one other exception (though certainly not for a worship service or inside a church building) which is the chewing of nicotine gum – at least if the offender would otherwise be smoking a cigarette. The sad thing is, two of my goddaughters – whom I love dearly – smoke, and they can’t even smell the odor that is left on their hair and clothes.
I don’t want to take this thread off-topic, really. Gum-chewing is nearly unacceptable in public or formal circumstances, unless, perhaps, it’s really not gum but a chewable medicine.
But…
what is one to do if handed a strip of minty gum, with a helpful remark about one’s breath? Not, oh dear, that this would ever apply to anyone reading dear PB’s tips here; nor, indeed, that this would EVER apply to me…
Whoops, I meant to say “nearly ALWAYS unacceptable” a couple of posts back.
Ha ha…I actually AM chewing gum right now, but I am completely alone in the office. I’ll spit it out before anyone has a chance to see or speak to me! (Pizza for breakfast…I had to do something “extra” to get rid of that memory.)
K, if nobody sees/hears, it is not a social faux-pas.
Alison, you make a good point–but if it’s nicotine gum, it could still be chewed reasonably quietly and unobtrusively. It’s the cud-chewing, gum-snapping stuff that is disturbing and declasse.
Reminds me of the time I went into the narthex with the garbage can, vestments on, prelude playing–and instructed EACH groomsmen (and yes, the groom too) to spit out that gum immediately! So mad I would have used my hands–one to hold the gum, the other to slap them all silly!!!
HH, I’ve had to do the same thing with a wedding party. sheesh.
And I attended another church’s praise service, and the lead singer was chewing gum- while she sang.
I’m watching the Winter Olympics opening ceremony right now, and yelling at the screen whenever a nation’s flag-bearer parades by chomping on gum (China & Ghana, so far….) Very undignified.