IN THE MOUTH
There is an amazing thing happening to people’s faces—and it’s been happening for years. Most of the time when I glimpse people in public, what I see is phenomenal. Nearly every one of them has something stuck in their mouths. If it’s not a giant plastic cup, it’s a giant paper one. If it’s not a wad of wrapping with food attached, it’s a bottle. If it’s not a bottle, it’s a globule of some type of comfort—and if it’s not a globule of some type of comfort, then it’s a cigarette.
Few people seem to enter public empty-mouthed. Their hands are united with the bottom portion of their faces, while they suck, or slurp—lap, or chew—bite, or lick—inhale, or blow—guzzle, or swallow. There is almost always some external pleasure device married to the lips, teeth, tongues, and gums of the human population.
What in the hell is going on here? Why does nearly ever person in society, at any given moment require the connection of an oral partner they covet with their hands? An inanimate object—with no breath, or personality, and probably very few redeeming qualities—is fastened to the lower part of the faces, of nearly every driver, walker, and park-bench-sitter.
Is it a mouth piece—a communication device for their private affair in public—one that sustains their wallowing in a flood of pleasing for the taste buds, a flood of pleasing for the pain?
Or is the draining mouth piece the filling —that keeps Time from seeming empty—in between cell phone calls?
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