Lucky Dorito

What do you do with your chewing gum when you’re done with it?

Would the thought of *saving it for later* cross your mind? (I mean, after you’ve chewed it a while.)

I was seating a cute yet super-hyperactive 8 year old male patient Tuesday and noticed he was chewing gum. I said, “What? You’re chewing GUM?? It’s going to be a litttttle hard to clean your teeth with that rolling around in there, so let’s get rid of it, k?” (This is a little pet peeve of mine… WHY show up at your appointment with gum in your mouth? I mean, chances are I’m going to have to WORK in that mouth to get your teeth cleaned, you know?)

I reached over to grab a tissue for him to put it in.

He glanced at the tissue as he was reaching in his mouth for the gum and then….. stuck his gum on the leg of his dirty jeans.

I said, “EWWWWW. What are you doing? Are you going to chew it again?”

He said, “Yeah!” grinning at me.

I said, “Your jeans are covered in dirt – are you REALLY going to put it back in your mouth?”

He snatched it off his jeans and shoved it back in his mouth and started chewing, grinned at me some more and said, “Yep!”

What a goofball. I just cracked up at him.

Of course, during the course of working on this wiggly-worm boy, his gum went from being stuck on his jeans to stuck on his elbow. I pointed it out and he plucked it off his elbow and stuck it back on his jeans. When I finished with him, he popped it back in his mouth and headed out the door. I followed him out to speak to his dad, telling him about the gum. His dad just laughed and said, “Yeah, that’s my boy.”

Trackback URI | Comments RSS