There it was.  A pink gooey wad of chewed gum.  Stuck to the handle of my coffee pot at 6am.  Hold up, people.  Rewind and read that again!    On the goshdarn handle of my dang coffee pot!!    At 0600. Bleary-eyed and sleepy, I stared at the gum.  The wad stared back.  Taunting me, actually.  Maybe I was still asleep and just having a nightmare?  As I peeled the gooey glob off the handle, I couldn’t help but ask this question:  What kind of sick sadistic monster would desecrate a grow’d man’s coffee pot with chewed gum?

Then, as I made a fresh pot, now with the faint smell of spearmint on my fingers, I remembered discovering another dried gum wad on a cutting board several days back.  Like with carrots and cucumbers still on it!!  WTF was going on around here?!”, I muttered to myself.  Okay, one sticky wad might be an accident, maybe, right?  But, two?  Now that takes premeditation and malice!!  The charge on the police blotter would be…”Aggravated Destruction of Kitchen Hygiene With Intent to Cause Dad Severe Mental Anguish.” 

WAIT!!  Then, it dawned on me.  I started putting all the pieces together like a crazy David Lynch movie….  Teenage girls (which have overtaken my house)…  playing crazy music on their phones…  recording dance videos with endless hair tosses and re-takes…  propping their phones up on stuff around the house… like blenders, or toasters, or… coffee pots.    And, what can’t a teenage girl do while she is recording herself (and friend) dancing to “Good As Hell” by Lizzo?  She can’t dance and chew gum at the same time.    BOOM!!!!    Been got dadgum TikTok’d!    That’s right. Before launching her TikTok sessions, my 16 year-old daughter is disposing of her gum on whatever is closest  – including my goshdang coffee pot!!  OMG!  The horror!!

So, whatever you happen to think about the geopolitics of TikTok and the rise of Chinese social media companies, I think we can all agree that there should be some sort of facial recognition feature that will shut down a teen’s phone if gum extraction and coffee pots are detected!!    Or maybe laser beams?  Can we do that yet?  Come on, TikTok!  Save a SAHD’s sanity and just fire laser beams to stop the chewed-gum-stuck-on-sh*t madness! 

Until then, just pay close attention before grabbing the kitchen gear – there’s been a lot of TikTok’n and gum chewing goin’ on round here!