Mike Cavaliere

Mike becomes besties with an airport clerk then makes a startling — no, shocking — revelation.

The mints were stacked inside of a rotating tower, so I spun it, scanning each level for gum.

Nothing.

This must be a mistake, I thought, shooting a doubletake at the shelving behind me then walking a full 360 around the tower to peruse the mints from a new perspective. Did I spin too fast? Scan too hastily? Anything was possible, especially with my nerves run ragged from my flight beginning to board in just a few short hours.

There’s a certain adrenaline rush that comes from air travel. I can get to the airport three days early, be through security, down the terminal and sitting across from my gate, and I’ll still be 99% sure I’m going to miss my flight.

What if I fall asleep? I wonder (even though I never, ever nap). What if I get distracted by an audiobook, or what if I’m at the wrong gate — or what if I’m at the wrong airport?! Anything is possible in travel, and one must stay vigilant. That’s why I embrace the panic; it keeps me on my toes. It’s also how I’ve come to depend upon the kindness of shop clerks.

“Excuse me,” I looked up from the mint tower. “Where do you keep your gum?”

“Oh we don’t ….” he trailed off.

“Sorry, what’s that?” I leaned in. The guy was a classic low-talker.

“There’s no gum in the airport.”

“No gum in the airport?”

“No.”

“In the whole airport?” I repeated, illustrating with my tone that I was starting to get the joke.

He shook his head solemnly. “It is banned.”

“Yeah, OK!” I scoffed. “Banned! Surrrre…. Good one, chief.”

Now, I consider myself a friend of the retail clerk. I respect their hustle, understand their plight. If a cashier needs a BFF, I’m their guy — I’ll laugh at their jokes, engage in weather-based chit-chat, even wish them “happy holidays” instead of “merry Christmas,” because I’m that good a guy. My record of congeniality is untarnished, which is why I really leaned into my mocking tone here, to show that I “got” it.

“No gum,” I chuckled again. “That’s rich….”

His expression remained unchanged. “Where you headed?”

“New York,” I told him. “Islip.” And I scoured the kiosk even more conspicuously this time, in a manner that said: “Although I appreciate your commitment to this whole ‘no gum’ bit and do feel a genuine kinship here — enough’s enough, asshole. Gimme the goods.”

He stared at me wide-eyed. “Ooh…. Do they have gum there?”

I locked eyes with the guy, officially convinced that he was either a buffoon or a comic genius, with deadpan delivery that matched that of a young Norm Macdonald. 

Was I in on the joke or the butt of one?

“Uh, yeah … yeah, they have gum there,” I said. “I think.”

“Wow…” he said, with the same awe as a child seeing fireworks for the first time.

Confounded, I grabbed a pack of Mentos, settled up and hightailed it back to my gate to panic in peace.

Later that night, as I regaled my family with legends of the world’s most mysterious retail clerk (and his guerilla-like alternative-comedy tactics), I replayed the scene over and over, and each time, the guy become more unreadable, unknowable.

Then I took to Google:

ORLANDO AIRPORT STICKS WITH BAN ON GUM SALES

It knocked the wind out of me.

Apparently, this embargo started in the ’90s, imposed due to “maintenance issues.” But where was the outcry? I wondered. Where were the pro-gum people with their “Don’t tread on me” bumper stickers and their outrage and their window decals that read, “Just try to take my gum,” next to a cartoon of a pissed-off Bazooka Joe? Why were no pro-gum lobbying groups formed or slogans minted (“Gum isn’t a maintenance issue — people are a maintenance issue!”)?

There’s un-American, and then there’s un-American, and then there’s this.

Have we learned nothing from the Revolution? I wondered, furiously sucking on a strawberry Mentos. This is where oppression starts. First they take our gum, next our women, probably, and then they force us to drink that horrible bathwater they call tea. Listen, I’m no history buff, but I know where this leads: taxation without even the faintest whiff of representation, which is generally agreed upon to be the worst kind.

Land of the free? Well, it used to be.

Look to the forefathers, that’s what I always say. To build a better tomorrow, we must look 200 years to the past — I literally never stop saying this. George Washington was a rabid gum chewer and look where that got us. Rumor has it he chewed Big Red and, although I never touch the stuff — more of a cotton candy-flavored BubbleYum man, myself — every inch of the Constitution is speckled with cinnamon-scented saliva, and that used to mean something in this country.

I’m sorry I mocked you, retail comedy clerk. Please, can we still be best friends?

Mike Cavaliere is the author of The Humorist: Adventures in Adulting & Horror Movies, available now.