Miasmatic Review

The joke's on me.

At my place of employment it is pretty common to see candy dishes or bowls set out for people to help themselves to a little treat. Heck, I’m known in the office as the guy that has the good chocolate. (I work mainly with women, having chocolate at my desk keeps them mellower and me saner.) Yesterday was I was walking through my unit just talking to my employees about anything but work; I noticed one of them had a bowl with green, yellow and white Jelly Beans in it. Being as I am a Green Bay Packer fan, I couldn’t help but notice it was their color scheme.

I asked her what was up with the “Packer” themed jelly beans. She advised that they are all flavors she didn’t like out of this bag of jelly beans she had bought. The green was pear, the yellow was lemon and the white was buttered popcorn. I figured I’d try one to see how bad it was. I started with a pear… and about lost my lunch. It was disgusting. They laughed at the face I made while finishing it off.

Opting not to try the yellow since I don’t like lemon, I grabbed a white one. Now, I love popcorn, and these weren’t bad. It didn’t taste exactly like buttered popcorn, but you could get the similarity. Since I liked them, she told me to take all the white ones… and I did. As I walked up and down the rows talking to my people one of them asked me what I was eating. “Its popcorn flavored jelly beans. They’re pretty good”, I tell her. She then asked me were I got them. So I told her that the other employee didn’t like them and gave them to me. She says to me, “Make sure you don’t eat too many, they are sugar free.”

At that point I had already eaten about 30 of the things, and I knew I was in for trouble. I go back to the employee I got them from and confirmed they were indeed sugar free. She even has the bag they came out of. Right on the back it states eating too many can cause “Gastric Distress”. The main sweetening ingredient in sugar-free candy is Maltitol. It’s also used as the active ingredient in laxatives. I had just finished eating a handful of these little gastric bombs. I knew was I going to be in trouble.

My employees are laughing, the one that gave it to me didn’t think to warn me they were sugar-free, and found it even more amusing. After they all had a great laugh, and I explained that I was going to be able to spend some quality time in the bathroom, I went back to my desk. About 45 minutes later I’m doing the duck walk to the bathroom as I feel a tightening in my bowel. This fun lasted for another couple of hours until it was finally out of my system.

Thanks to my employees, I think my colon is the cleanest it’s been in years.