This I've Believed

A friend sent us a little treat in the mail - candy from one of my husband's favorite candy stores growing up. Amongst the various treats, was a small bag of gummy worms. Now, I could probably count on one hand the number of times in my entire life I've eaten gummy worms. They have quite frankly just never appealed to me. Gummy bears I'm great with, but gummy worms. . . Somehow that just seems a little gross. It almost seems like the consistency of a real worm, were I to doctor one up and eat it. Despite my phobia, those brightly colored, sugar coated creatures beckoned me to eat one yesterday. I willed myself to ignore the wormy shape while I sucked off the sugar, and I even tried to imagine that it really was just a gummy bear when I began chewing it, but alas. . it was a real gummy worm. I found myself pondering if someone down at the gummy factory might have thought it would be fun to slip in some real worms to unsuspecting candy lovers - I imagined the chewy treat in my mouth as one of those real worm. Then I came to my senses and reasoned it was a ridiculous thought that anyone at the gummy factory would ever substitute real worms for the sugary kind. And just as that unpleasant thought passed, another one replaced it: what if someone, instead of swapping out whole real worms, decided to merely ground up worm parts to make a more realistic consistency for the candy. . What if it was the candy factory's dirty little secret that they really used live ground worms to make the gummy worms? I recalled biology class in high school with the overpowering smell of formaldehyde and a grossly dissected worm splayed before me. It was then that the gummy worm in my mouth really just lost all flavor. . I chewed it grudgingly just wanting to be done with it already. As much as I can cognitively accept that gummy worms are in no way, shape or form actually made of worms, somehow I cannot truly accept that in my heart of hearts.

And, as hard as it is to believe, gummy worms aren't the only subject of my contorted reasoning. Until recently, I firmly believed drinking too much tea actually caused kidney stones. Yes, coffee, if you somehow ingested too many grounds could cause kidney stones, but tea was really the main culprit. My husband was making one of his infamous coffee milkshakes (requiring the use of coffee grounds) when I first voiced my concern. "We really shouldn't have these too often; we'll get kidney stones like any tea drinker from all the coffee grounds piling up in our kidneys." My husband stopped everything, dead in his tracks "Say that again?". He refused to accept my bizarre reasoning and demanded I consult with a trained medical professional: my mother. "Where in the world did you get that idea, Danielle?" my mother asked with a tone of shock and disbelief. She then proceeded to explain to me the truths of kidney stones and how coffee and/or tea had little to nothing to do with them.

And those aren't the only absurdities I've believed for practically my whole life. It was only a few years ago while driving with my mother (poor woman. . . she probably wonders why she ever even bothered trying to teach me a thing. . may as well have been raised by a pack of wolves) and nearly causing an accident at a simple four way stop that this other little bit of personal confusion was brought to light. "Danielle!" she commented sternly, "It wasn't your turn! You just cut that guy off!". To which I responded "No I didn't. He never touched the white line with his front tires when he stopped." It was as I verbalized this bizarre little rule I had personally founded that I realized how wrong I actually was. No where in my driver's manual had it ever said anything about having to touch the white line at a stop sign to be considerer "waiting in line" for your turn at the four way stop.

While I believe I think pretty clearly at this point in the maturation process, I have a feeling that I'll always be creating and then debunking my own strange theories which guide me through life. Still, I have no intention whatsoever of ever trying another gummy worm again as long as I live!