Talking Smack

My biggest pet peeve of all times has to be the sound of chewing. That pretty much means if you chew with your mouth open as a habit, I cannot associate myself with you at meal or snack times. If you are one of those people who chew with a closed mouth, but do a couple of open chews every 30 chews, I may share a meal with you as long as there is something to distract me from the sound. The reason I am pointing this out right now is because I am at work and a couple of cubicles over there is a person not just chewing loudly, but smacking their gum. The thing about gum chewing is that there is no end. On occasion the person in the cubicle opposite of me eats her lunch and makes terrible chewing sounds, but I always know it will only last a few minutes and try to tough it out. This particular gum-chewing individual is greatly enjoying his gum and I don't know that there is an end in sight. When his present piece of gum runs out of flavor, he may replace it and resume the chewing. I just don't know. I called David to see if I can kill some of the smacking time and fill my ears with talking, not smacking, but he is busy at Crackalackin' Tuesday (Jr. High/Highschool weekly summer hangout). I decided to start humming to myself and it works, but I realized I don't want people to hear me. My hum turned into a half whistle- pretty much whistling minus the noise, so I am basically just blowing air out of my mouth to a melody. That works pretty well, I suppose, but I'd rather be able to sit silently to myself and enjoy the daily foot traffic noises unpolluted by SMACKING. Oh! I think he has stopped! Or maybe just left his cubicle for a moment- or an hour-long meeting! What a blessing. So to you smacking, open-mouth chewers- I am sorry we will never be able to share a meal. Maybe someday when I am old and gray and my hearing is gone...