Makes mouths happy. MAKES MOUTHS HAPPY!!!

I've been laid low by Jumanji Twizzlers.



It waits for some unsuspecting person to find it, play it, and release the evil jungle magic within.

But I'm not prone to opening mysterious board games that wash up on the beach. No, this time the evil jungle magic had to bend itself to my weak spot:



I couldn't help it. It just popped in there.

Twizzlers. One of the new resealable two-pound pouches that locks freshness in. Like we used to eat at Camp Waconda.

Only this bag didn't just lock in freshness. Oh no. Let's turn back the clock to last fall when I came down with an annoyingly persistent flu-like virus that completely floored me. My sister bought me a bag of resealable Twizzlers to cheer me up. No, not healthy for me, but hey, I was sick, and I wanted to feel better in some quantifiable way.

So I had some, sealed the bag, went back to cowering under the covers and got better.

February came around, and, as I was straightening my landfill of a room, I found, buried under clothes, DVDs, PSP games and comic books...

The Jumanji Twizzlers.

Oh, at the time, I didn't know it was they, but the effect was immediate: I ate a few, and a couple days later, I was going through boxes of tissue like... well, like Kleenex. And I was not in the mood for Twizzlers any more, so they got kneaded back into the bottom of the counter bread machine that is my room.

And then I was sifting through piles of stuff I had recently tossed around (to be able to sleep on my bed again), and there, innocent and sweet, sat...

THE JUMANJI TWIZZLERS.

I carried them downstairs, having only an hour before discovered I had nothing but frozen meals and Pop-Tarts as immediate dining options. I sat down in front of CSI: Miami Season 1, and I had several strawberry-flavored twists.

Now everything above my philtrum is pounding, my nose is gushing, and my throat constantly feels like I've gargled with salt. Not salt water; salt.

So, of course, I threw the bag away as soon as I realized where the evil jungle magic had come from.

But now I realize: I didn't burn it. It's sitting in a trash bag somewhere, on its way to a dump, in some homeless child's hands... and the Freshness seal is intact. The Jumanji Twizzlers are pristine inside. And someone will find them... and eat them... and the horror will live again.

Oh, God, I can still hear the drums! The hideous beating of those unearthly bongos, their sheer intensity threatening to drag me into my own personal heart of darkness!...

...Oh, wait. Sorry. I was just playing Rock Band on Nyquil.

Never mind.



Thank you, Seattle. Are you ready to r--BEWARE THE JUMANJI TWIZZLERS!