Coffee.

For many it’s a morning elixir or a liquid alarm clock, if you will.

I’m not a coffee connoisseur for several reason: I hate waiting in long lines at Starbucks and I hear hot coffee farts aren’t pleasant at all.

A co-worker once asked me, how I can be so cheery and perky in the morning since I don’t drink coffee. I told her that I’m high on life and look forward to every morning because it’s the beginning of a brand new day, full of experiences, wonder, delight, and sunshine.

After telling her this, she told me she hated me and then with a glimmer of animosity in her eyes, she took the lid off of her six dollar Starbucks espresso, had thoughts about throwing the scalding hot liquid at my face, but soon came to her senses, not because the hot coffee would burn me, but because she would be wasting a six dollar Starbucks espresso and would have to wait in a long line to get another.

Of course, what I told her wasn’t the truth, but I couldn’t tell her what really got me going every morning, which was either crack cocaine or lines of regular cocaine off of a passed out stripper’s ass.

I may not be a coffee drinker, but I seem to like coffee-flavored products, like ice cream and candy. I enjoy these products because they tend to be just like the way I like my women, artificially colored and flavored. Recently, I got to try the Wrigley’s Doublemint Kona Creme coffee flavored gum, which finally appeared on the shelves here after being announced earlier this year.

You would think that having the town of Kona on one of these rocks in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, would pretty much guarantee the Kona Creme gum being on store shelves here when it was introduced, but unfortunately that wasn’t the case.

For those who don’t know, Kona coffee is considered to be one of the premium coffees in the world and it comes from a little town called Kona, which is a tourist destination, much like Oahu’s Waikiki or Maui’s Lahaina, except significantly smaller and without any transvestite prostitutes.

Speaking of transvestite prostitutes, this Wrigley’s Doublemint Kona Creme gum is very much like one, because at first it was pretty good, but then after a little more chewing and digging it became something I didn’t expect…nor want…nor pay extra for.

When I first put it in my mouth it had a very good coffee flavor, which tasted much like other Kona coffee products I’ve tried. However, about a minute later that flavor turned into something I didn’t want to savor. It turned bad like it was Darth Vader and now I’m a Kona Creme gum hater and don’t really trust its creator.

Um, I’m not too sure why those last two sentences ended up rhyming.

But it might’ve been the cocaine.

(Editor’s Note: Back in April, Impulsive Buy reader Nina asked if I could review the Kona Creme gum and here’s the review….seven months later. Also, TIB friend TG reviewed the WDKC earlier in the year at NYCE. OK!)

Item: Wrigley’s Doublemint Kona Creme Gum
Price: 99 cents
Purchased at: 7-Eleven
Rating: 2 out of 5
Pros: Good coffee flavor while it lasted. Doing lines of coke off of a passed out stripper’s ass. Being high on life and looking forward to every morning because it’s the beginning of a brand new day, full of experiences, wonder, delight, and sunshine.
Cons: Flavor doesn’t last very long. When the flavor runs out, it tastes pretty bad. No caffeine. Transvestite prostitutes, unless you’re into them. Coffee farts. Long lines at Starbucks for expensive coffee. Won’t freshen breath.

As I chewed on the Extra Cool Watermelon Gum, I wondered how can I be extra cool. How can I be the pinnacle of cool? How can I be so cool that if I wore a cardboard Burger King crown everywhere I went, everyone in the country would want to wear one?

But before I could become extra cool, I had to figure out how to be just plain old cool. The only way I could figure out how to do this was by watching the ultimate indicator of coolness…MTV.

So what did I learn from watching MTV?

The first thing I need to become cool is to get some Grillz made for me. Preferably, I need thirty down at the bottom, thirty mo’ at the top.

Another thing I need to become cool is that I must live in the community of Laguna Beach, in a house with a bunch of cameras and roommates from different backgrounds, but one of them definitely either needs to be gay, African-American, or both.

Also, I need to have a super sweet 16 party at some fancy-schmancy place with Fall Out Boy or Maroon 5 playing.

Oh yeah, I also need spinning chrome rims for my car.

But now that I think about it, all of this wouldn’t just make me cool, it would automatically make me extra cool. Sure it’s expensive, but I think it’s worth it.

Grillz…$30,000.

A crib in Laguna Beach…$7 million.

Super Sweet 16 Party…$35,000.

Spinning chrome rims…$20,000.

Seeing people around the country wear a Burger King crown on their head because I made it cool…Priceless.

Now all I need is about $7.1 million dollars and I’ll be on my way to coolness and the rest of y’all will be on your way to wearing cardboard Burger King crowns.

However, right now, I’m not even as cool as this Extra Cool Watermelon Gum.

Not only does it have the word “cool” on its packaging, it also comes in pink, which is probably the coolest color out there for women, some gay men, guys who have their girlfriends pick their clothes, and people who mix their whites and colors in the washing machine.

It also has very good watermelon taste, which was a taste I would’ve expected from Hubba Bubba gum, Bubblicious gum, Big League Chew gum, or a stripper who LOVES watermelon body oil, but not from a stick of Extra gum. How cool is that?

Even by association, the Extra Cool Watermelon Gum doesn’t even make me slightly cool. Right now, I think I’m as cool as an over-produced, mass-marketed “Vote for Pedro” t-shirt.

(Editor’s Note: Thanks to Impulsive Buy reader dramastically for letting me know about the Extra Cool Watermelon Gum. Also, go read TG’s take on the gum at NYCE.)

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Item: Extra Cool Watermelon Gum
Purchase Price: $1.09
Rating: 4.5 out of 5
Pros: Significantly cooler than me. Good watermelony flavor. Decent-lasting flavor. No watermelon seeds. Chewing it doesn’t make me slightly cool. Comes in pink, which is good for some people. Strippers who love watermelon body oil.
Cons: Can’t blow decent bubbles with it. “Vote for Pedro” t-shirts. The amount of money needed to become extra cool. Not being able to realize my dream of seeing people wear cardboard Burger King crowns on their heads.

It’s hard to choose which Limited Edition Wrigley’s Juicy Fruit Gum flavor I like best, because the blue and pink flavors are very similar.

They both have juicy AND fruity flavors; both are limited edition; neither comes in the color they’re named after; both have short-lasting flavor; and both have two of the most unoriginal chewing gum flavor names EVER.

Since I can’t decide which one I prefer, I think the best way to figure it out is to have an ol’ fashioned Color-off, which is a competition that involves naming things off of the top of my head that come in either color OR has the color in its name. Then I rate each item as either something positive or negative.

I have to come up with ten items for each color, count the positives, and then the one with the most positives will be the winner.

Ready? Here we go!

Pink prime rib…Positive (Unless you like your meat well done, then if that’s the case, go eat something else).

Blue police lights…Positive (Unless you’re wanted for something).

Pink poodles…Negative.

The blue sky…Positive (Unless you’re falling through it without a parachute).

The diet soft drink Tab…Negative.

The Blue Lagoon…Positive (Unless you’re a guy and masturbated to the love scenes, which is wrong because Brooke Shields was only 14 years old at the time).

An orangutang in a pink lace ballerina skirt…Positive (Unless it’s throwing its own poop at you).

Blue balls…Negative.

Pink eye…Negative.

Blue denim jeans…Positive (Unless you’re wearing it with a blue denim jacket, blue denim cap, blue denim long-sleeve shirt, and blue denim shoes).

Pink Floyd…Positive (Unless you think Pink Floyd is the name of an alcoholic drink, because you’re too young to know what Pink Floyd is).

Weezer’s Blue Album…Positive (Unless you don’t like Jonas).

Weezer’s Pinkerton Album…Positive (Unless you hate critically acclaimed albums that didn’t have a lot of record sales).

The Blue Pill from the Matrix…Negative (Unless you like living in ignorance, unaware of reality, and enjoy having a bunch of tubes sticking out of your body in a robotic human growing farm).

Pink Energizer Bunny…Positive (Unless you have a headache).

Blue Man Group…Negative (Unless you’re also into Smurfs).

The Pink Power Ranger…Positive (Unless you prefer the Yellow Power Ranger).

The TV show Blue Thunder…Positive (Unless you didn’t see any of the episodes during its very short 11 episode run).

Pigs, either alive or in raw bacon form…Positive (Unless you hate mud, the movie Babe, or have heart disease).

Blue Viagra pills…Positive (Unless your erection has lasted longer than five hours).

Done.

Hmm…Seven pink positives and seven blue positives?

Damn! That didn’t solve anything.

Anyway, the real winner is Wrigley’s for coming up with a way, albeit an overused way by Hershey’s, to sell gum. Also, the real losers are those of us who bought these packs of Limited Edition Juicy Fruit gum.

The flavors aren’t very special, they don’t last very long, and they have totally unoriginal names, much like boy bands.

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Item: Limited Edition Wrigley’s Juicy Fruit Gum
Purchase Price: $1.09 each
Rating: 2.5 out of 5
Pros: Fruity AND Juicy. Limited edition. Pigs. The TV show Blue Thunder. Weezer’s Pinkerton album. The Pink Power Ranger. The Energizer Bunny. Weezer’s Blue Album. Blue jeans. Pink Floyd. An orangutang in a pink lace ballerina skirt. The blue sky. Blue police lights. Pink prime rib. The Blue Lagoon. Viagra.
Cons: Not a low calorie food. Short-lasting flavor. Neither come in the colors they’re named after. Most unoriginal flavor names EVER, would’ve been better if they were named Blew Blew Blue Boo Boo and Tinkle Tinkle Pinkle Pinkle. Blue Man Group. The Blue Pill. Pink eye. Blue balls. Tab. Pink poodles.

The last time I checked, caffeine doesn’t make anyone mad. In large doses, it may make hands tremble uncontrollably or make Robin Williams so hyperactive that you wish you had a tranquilizer gun.

So why must today’s review subject be called Mad-Croc Power Peppermint Energy Gum? Also, the same can be asked about the Mad Dog Energy Bars I reviewed last year.

All these energy drinks and other energy products have these “aggro,” “xtreme,” or “mad” names and labels, but a large majority of people don’t use these products to be “aggro,” “xtreme,” or “mad.” Instead, they use these product to help them “work,” “study,” or “finish a review for a quasi-product review blog.”

If you can read this review, I know you’ve done a lot of studying in life, and you know there is nothing “aggro,” “xtreme,” or “mad” about studying.

Also, isn’t the name “Mad-Croc” sort of redundant? Don’t crocodiles ALWAYS look mad, and I’m not just talking about the Croc Monster from Scooby Doo or the crocodiles Steve Irwin messes with.

I’ve never seen a happy crocodile. The crocodiles in the National Geographic TV specials always look mad when their mating rituals are being recorded and shown to the world. Kid Rock hates when that happens, but I think crocodiles hate it even more.

Even the crocodile in the Lacoste logo looks totally pissed off about being stitched to preppy French clothing.

However, if there’s anything crocodiles should be mad about, it’s the taste of the Mad-Croc Power Peppermint Energy Gum.

It tasted like I imagine a stale candy cane that’s over four years old would. One that you happened to have found under the sofa, but you think it’s okay to eat because it’s in a wrapper, but just like Joan Rivers, it got crusty over time.

In other words, the taste was horrible, although after going through the entire pack of gum, I sort of got used to it.

I guess it’s sort of like when you take a huge dump. At first, it smells horrible and you try to recollect what you ate that day, but after some times passes, you get used to it.

Or, if not, you do a pre-wipe flush.

Although I may not like its taste, I do like the fact that Mad-Croc gum comes in blue jumbo pieces and just two pieces contains about as much caffeine as an 8-ounce energy drink or a cup of coffee, which was enough energy to help me write a review for a quasi-product review blog. It also contains a bunch of vitamins, like riboflavin, vitamin B6, niacin, vitamin B12, and pantothenic acid.

So is the Mad-Croc Power Peppermint Energy Gum a product I would want to use to freshen my breath during a hot date?

With its crappy flavor, I definitely wouldn’t use it for that.

Is the Mad-Croc Power Peppermint Energy Gum a product you would feed to Robin Williams to get him hyperactive enough to use him for tranquilizer gun target practice?

Hell yes!

Lock and load!

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Item: Mad-Croc Power Peppermint Energy Gum
Purchase Price: $1.69
Rating: 2.5 out of 5
Pros: Caffeine. Jumbo pieces. Mucho B vitamins. Perfect to feed Robin Williams to get him hyperactive enough to use him for tranquilizer gun target practice.
Cons: Crappy taste. Flavor may not be ideal for freshening breath. Mad crocodiles. Steve Irwin.

I don’t know about you, but when I was growing up I didn’t want to have Superman’s superhuman strength, Flash’s lightning quick speed, or Wonder Woman’s stupid lasso that made people tell the truth. I wanted the special ability of shooting fire out of my mouth.

Perhaps this desire was influenced by the many Godzilla movies I watched. Or maybe I wanted to be able to roast marshmallows whenever or wherever I wished. Or maybe I wanted to be the reason why people yelled, “The roof, the roof, the roof is on fire! We don’t need no water let the motherfucker burn!”

I also came up with a cool name if I ever had the ability to shoot fire out of my mouth. I would’ve called myself, “Hellmouth.”

Although now that I’m older and wiser, I realize that this name would either put fear into the hearts of criminals or make everyone think I had bad breath.

When I received a can of Dragon Fire Gum from Impulsive Buy reader Akiko, who picked it up during her journey to the exotic land called Los Angeles, I thought it would allow me to have the fire-shooting breath to destroy a miniature version of Tokyo that I would’ve built using Legos and Jenga pieces. Instead it allowed me to have cinnamon smelling breath.

Inside the can of Dragon Fire Gum was a slip of paper with the words:

According to ancient oriental beliefs, dragons breathed fire to protect treasures from evil spirits. Dragon Fire’s intense hot cinnamon taste will protect you from evil breath spirits. Each piece of gum is loaded with hot imperial cinnamon and then singed to seal in the hot cinnamon flavor.

Yeah, right. And Calgon laundry detergent is an ancient Chinese secret.

So bad breath is caused by evil spirits and not by garlic, onions, smoking, having food debris trapped in your mouth, or kissing a hooker with missing teeth?

If that’s the case, I don’t need gum or toothbrushes, I need either Holy Water or the Ghostbusters.

The dragon design on the outside of the can was cool. However, the gum on the inside, not so much.

Each Dragon Fire gum looked like a red peanut M&M with wrinkles. It also looked like it had a hard shell, but it didn’t have one.

Remember the “intense hot cinnamon taste” printed on the slip of paper in the Dragon Fire Gum can? Well it was there…sometimes. Some pieces made my mouth feel like there was a party going in it, with fireworks and strippers. However, other pieces also made my mouth feel like there was a party going on in it, except with tea, crumpets, and fully-clothed nuns.

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Item: Dragon Fire Gum
Purchase Price: FREE (Received from Impulsive Buy reader Akiko)
Rating: 2 out of 5
Pros: Sugarfree. Cool looking can. Dragon would make a cool tattoo. Parties with fireworks and strippers.
Cons: Inconsistent cinnamon bite. Looks like it has a hard shell, but doesn’t have one. Parties with fully-clothed nuns. My inability to shoot fire from my mouth.