First time ever! I think today was the first time I've purchased gummi anything -- bears, worms, children, Super Mario Brothers and assorted enemy shapes, etc. I've tasted these things, of course, but they're the kind of thing I'd take only when someone else had them. They're the snacks mothers buy, sticking the little pouches in their kids' lunchboxes before shuffling them off to school. They're the kinds of things you find at the ice cream topping bar and pack onto your makeshift sundae at the endangered species of a restaurant that still has that sort of thing. And, yes, they're available in the snack aisle at your local supermarket, but does anyone buy them? Are there people who write "gummi bears" on their grocery lists? Someone must. I never did.
I happened to be standing in the line at the dollar store today when I saw them there amidst the impulse buy candy that every store places near the front in order to pump their customers for spare change and incite violent tantrums from children. (In front of me, a little girl with chocolate frosting smeared across her mouth wailed, "MOMMY I WANT IT," as her mother scolded her for eating the chocolate treat she now wore on her face. The girl was holding what looked like a wax paper bag -- the kind one fits with a cone-shaped tip and uses to frost a cake. She had apparently gnawed a hole in it and had been sucking the frosting from the wound.) Gummi bears. And I would have looked away without giving them a second thought -- as I have so many times before -- if not for the voice in my head. It said:
"Would you like a jelly baby?"
I snatched the bag from its metal peg and placed it among my other purchases. No, gummi bears are not jelly babies, but they will do.
Curse you, Doctor Who. Curse you and your jelly babies.
