You usually learn at an early age that just because things smell good, it doesn’t mean you should eat them; kind of a rite of passage. Sometimes the most illogical things make their way into your mouth, and somehow you convince yourself it tastes pretty damn good. You share your new discovery with friends, and pretty soon everybody’s doing it. Behold, peer pressure. Of course it starts out innocent enough – just a little taste. Before you know it you’ve graduated from chewing a nice hunk of red construction paper and licking craft paste to sucking on Mr. Sketch scented markers. It wasn’t anything out of the ordinary to see a few kids walking to gym class with a streak of purple coming out the corner of their mouth. Grape was the most sought after, and was also the least effective when it came to actually coloring, because too many drags had been taken off them. You often had to settle for blue when it came to coloring Gonzo’s nose, or any other purple Muppet.

Most of that got left behind at kindergarten, along with nap time. While a few of the runny-nosed kids still took a random dip of red construction paper and held it in their cheek for story time, the rest of us had moved on to better things. By second grade the hot new thing to eat, was chapstick, and not the medicated kind. Only the idiots licked Carmex. We hit the stuff with the flavor.

Taste of choice around the playground was usually cherry Blistex., probably because it was the only flavor at the drug store downtown…well, that and Carmex. Every once and a while you’d get a kid whose parents actually left the town’s tiny bubble. The next day you’d see them walk into the classroom double fistin’; watermelon in one hand, spearmint in the other. They were the ones you envied. The normal kid was lucky to have two tubes, even luckier if they were two different flavors. My aunt Kim sold Avon. I had the goods. You came to me for variety – bubblegum, orange, lime, and mixed berry. Mixed berry was a hot commodity because it was like Skittles. Sunkissed, which didn’t actually have a food-like flavor, was more an acquired taste. It was one of my favorites.

Very few lip balm lickers actually chewed on their lip balm. Most licked in moderation. Only the hard-cores chewed, and there were very few. They were the junkies, mostly known for time-outs, staying in for recess and getting notes sent home to mom. A prime example, a kid named Greg. He went down in second-grade history for biting off the entire stick on a bus ride home. Only a couple of kids actually witnessed it, and the story soon became an urban legend in the halls of our elementary. Like most legends, over time the story changed. No one was really sure anymore if he actually swallowed it or spit it out. The fact was he at least bit it off and chewed. That was enough.

The chapstick phenomenon didn’t last for very long. You know how it goes. Everyone’s always lookin’ for that new and better fix. The cool kids had discovered the wonders of flavored dental floss.

Tana Zwart grew up in the little Dutch village of Edgerton, Minn. A senior Creative Writing major at Southwest Minnesota State University, she loves to find humor in the little things, and is often inspired by the human condition.