Free Your Body is Changing by Jack Pendarvis Page A

whether to chew it or blow it. And hey, maybe we can make it where they can swallow it.” Because before that, you know, no one was allowed to swallow gum. That’s a discredited way of thinking now, and yes, I suppose Conrad is principally responsible for that, for what I would call a sea change in the way Americans engage with gum as a recreational snack.
    STANLEY BOUNCE, Gum Aficionado:
They test marketed It Better Be Gum in Texarkana. I don’t know where else. All I know is, me and my friends were the only people putting it in our mouths. Like, “I dare you to put this in your mouth!” Because after you spit it out there was still like this greasy feeling and this weird bitter taste. And when I went number two it burned! But I didn’t associate that with It Better Be Gum. I just thought there was something wrong with me. Then my friend Glen was in the bathroom for like, forever, and I was like, “What’s up?” And he was like, “Every time I chew this gum I get like, the runs.” And I was like, cool.
    SARA SPOONER, The “It Better Be Gum Girl”:
The gorilla in the commercial was super sweet! He would sit in the corner and go “Uh, uh, uh!” I think he was trying to talk to me! That was super sweet. There wasn’t a mouth on the mask where the gorilla could talk out of, so it just sounded like “Uh, uh, uh!” to me. But he acted super sweet. He waved to me and everything. Like, “How are you?” Or, “Good morning, Sara!” But he didn’t use words to express it. Just “Uh, uh, uh!” It made me feel bright and cheerful. That was sad when he died.
    CONRAD HATCHER:
When the monkey man died I was like, “Whoa!” I was like, “Heavy, dude.” I was like, “What the fuck?” I was like, “Who’s going to be the monkey man now?”
    STANLEY BOUNCE:
I’ll never forget the first It Better Be Gum commercial. I had all my homies with me because you know, this was a gum that only we knew about. So we just crouched around the television, there was about fifteen of us and my Mom made fudge. Plus we were all chewing It Better Be Gum. It was kind of a bummer because everybody in the whole world was going to know about our secret thing. But there was like a definite party atmosphere. And when that monkey came out and started dancing his ass off, that sealed the deal, bro! That was the funniest damn monkey I ever saw. He was going [demonstrates monkey movements]. It was like the monkey was saying, “Back off, parents! You can’t understand this gum!” And the sexy girl was like, “That’s right!” But they said it through their motions of dancing. Glen literally went in his pants he was laughing so hard. He couldn’t get in the bathroom either because somebody else was in there with the runs. That was the greatest night of my life.
    WAYNE GOODWIN:
I really felt that Chunkafella, the It Better Be Gum Monkey, was an almost holy character, like a Hindu god or something. And when that guy died, the guy who usually put on the gorilla suit, the whole weltzschmertz changed. It was like the spiritual center had just crumbled somehow. You could feel it. Of course, it was impossible to tell him apart from the next guy who put on the gorilla suit—impossible on a literal level, because, you know, it’s some guy in a gorilla suit—but on a subliminal level it broke my heart.
    CONRAD HATCHER:
They kept making me think there would be Choco-Grape It Better Be Gum with Super Flavor Bombs and everything, and I was like, stoked. And then it would be like, “Sorry, Dude, I changed my mind. The juice runoff from your gum totally eats people’s stomach lining for some reason.” Whatever. At first I was all, “Whoa.” Now I’m like, “Whatever.” I guess America’s not ready for something that’s going to eat their precious stomach lining. You know, okay, that’s your problem, not mine. I’m glad I had the experience. It made me think about my thoughts as a human being or some shit. Anyway I got a lot of other