The Super Fun Adventure Quest Time Nonsense Gum Experiment

It all started when I offered the Huntsman a piece of gum. When he asked what flavor the gum was, I said, "Blue."

Puzzled, he retorted, "What flavor is blue?"

"I suppose it's some sort of minty, fresh, frosty-tasting flavor."

"But if you bought the gum, shouldn't you know the flavor? Shouldn't you be more clear on the matter?"

I responded triumphantly, "Of course not! I merely selected the gum by the color of the packaging!"

(It suddenly occurred to me that my penchant for selecting products based solely on label color might not be the most common method of shopping. Still, it leads to delightfully unexpected results. For example, were I shopping for diet soda, I might just as easily end up with coconut juice, since both beverages have white labels. This gastronomic Russian roulette is an exciting way to liven up the taste buds.)

I studied the gum packaging carefully and declared, "This gum is 'Polar Ice'-flavored. Here, have a piece, and describe to me the taste of the frozen wastes...."

"Why, it tastes minty-fresh! The inside of my mouth does in fact feel colder....Astonishing!"

This simple interaction ignited a flicker of insight in my brain. What if I set up an experiment where the participants would sample gum without knowing the flavors beforehand? Without the visual clues of the packaging, the enticing descriptions, would they be able to determine the taste?

And so, I collected a variety of gum flavors: mint chocolate chip, orange crème pop, apple pie, root beer float, lemon square, sweet watermelon, polar ice, and winter fresh. Sadly, I was unable to locate the rainbow sherbet flavor, as I was particularly interested in finding out what a rainbow tastes like.

Next, I designed the packaging in which to present the gum experiment. It was a joy to make with the Lab's new Klic-N-Kut machine. (I could have used the online packaging personalization tool offered by Extra Gum, but that project ended disappointingly earlier this year. Alas, I would have so loved to share the results of our gum experiments with you, gentle reader.)

And so, I emptied all the flavors of gum into a pile and shuffled them vigorously. I randomly selected pieces and inserted them into the new package. Then I spent a week offering random strangers and Laboratory employees a chance to sample a piece of gum and participate in an experiment.

While the random strangers were generally open to free gum and the cause of science, Lab employees were suspicious of my motives, asking, "What did you put into this?"and "Did you make the gum yourself?" and "Is this onion-flavored?" and "Does this look infected to you?"

The experiment took an unexpected turn when the package of gum was left unattended and was pillaged during the Lab's annual "Celebration of the Miraculous Egg." The sticky-fingered party-goers chewed the gum in a non-observant, non-scientific manner, and the data for those stolen pieces of gum were lost.

The results of this experiment were inconclusive. I shall have to try again, when more flavors are introduced into the world by the gum industry.