Stodgy Authority Figure
Point
I Am Threatened By Flavor Crystals
Go ahead, call me old-fashioned! I don’t care if you brazen teenage hoodlums mock me! Maybe my views are not “in,” “happening” or “out of this world.” They may be unpopular in this depraved era of sin and excess. But they are the words of time-honored truth! I urge all parents and children alike to work in close connection with their families, clergy and local law enforcement personnel to wipe the scourge of Flavor Crystals from our once-great nation’s now-blighted shores.
Sure, the lure of these tasty nuggets of flavor enhancement are a lure that is difficult for a child to resist, but resist they must! It is well known that gum provides a sweet-tasting diversion for many youth. Heck, I’ve even enjoyed a stick or two myself over the years. But it is a scientifically proven fact that the powerful burst of cinnamon-spicy goodness that is contained within even the smallest of these new-fangled “Flavor Crystals” is just too exciting for normal gum-chewing pleasure!
What, I ask you, will become of decorum, restraint, simple common decency, when something as indulgent, as deviant as a blast of Flavor Crystalline satisfaction is available at the corner drugstore for a few pennies?
Do you expect me to turn a blind eye to hedonistic chewers around us, young people driven wild by the uncontrolled taste treat of Flavor Crystals? People who drive flashy cars at inappropriate velocities? Rebels against traditional values like thrift, home and hearth, God and country? Mere children, exceeding the bounds of all commonly accepted standards of behavior, whose only credo is: “If it feels good, do it!”? Never.
Cast aside these newfangled items like soda pop and CDs. Enjoy nourishing milk instead! Invest your pocket money in grandfather clocks, china sets and government savings bonds like a good citizen should! Save up for those all-important dowries and hope chests!
Let’s get these young people out of the gutter and back into the church youth group socials where they belong. Flavor Crystals? Not in my classroom! Not in this state!
Liberated Party Monster
Counterpoint
Flavor Crystals Rock My World!
Get with it, old timer! Dig the scene that’s happening today! It’s the ’90s, pal, and that means one thing: Party hearty! Just do it! Nothin’ but net! Have an extreme summer! If it’s too loud you’re too old! Dew it to it! Double your pleasure! Have fun, be young!
I’ve got news for you, pal: I’m a member of the much-coveted 18 to 24-year-old youth demographic and believe me, I’m going to enjoy it while it lasts! I’m spending all of my disposable income on entertaining and delicious consumer products! Products with a devil-may-care, it’s-better-to-burn-out-than-fade-away attitude! My kind of attitude!
And Flavor Crystals are a major part of that worldview! Because Flavor Crystals were designed, marketed and distributed to me! Because I’m just the kind of on-the-edge, happy-go-lucky wild man who was made for the uncontrollably delicious blast of mouth-watering flavor they provide!
You say I’m out of control? You know what? You’re darn right I am!
I stay up late every night and go to late-night fast-food restaurants like Taco Bell! I’m always on the go! You can tell by the products I purchase and consume, from movies to music to food to drink to, yes, even the gum I chew! Because no ordinary gum will do for me! I need a special, youth-oriented gum to give me the wild times I crave!
And if it may not be suitable for adults, then so be it! I’m puttin’ the pedal to the metal and opening up with both barrels in the face of society’s cruel plan to eliminate fun from my life, a plan I know all about because I saw it detailed for me in slick, hip TV ads designed to tell me everything a rebel like me needs to know! What “The System” is, and how to fight it!
Flavor Crystals are the best damn cinnamon gum additive ever to come down the pike, and you’ll get mine away from me when you pry the pack from my cold, dead fingers! I also have an alternative haircut, just like the Stone Temple Pilots! Take that, old man! Screw your authority! Everybody get off on that Flavor Crystal burst, and everybody Wang Chung tonight!
