Because I have been spending so much time playing games I mean working, today’s mikeschramm.com has been outsourced to Brendan Fitzpatrick. He wrote this essay, he tells me, for admission to a college so prestigious it will not be named. It was in answer to a query about how to seperate the world into two clean segments. Enjoy.

There are two types of people in the world. Those who prefer gummy bears, and those who prefer gummy worms. These two types of people most likely come from different types of families, have extremely dissimilar interests, and pursue vastly divergent goals in life.

I have chosen the gummy bear/gummy worm division because I honestly feel that to ask someone, “Would you prefer a gummy bear or a gummy worm?” is to come extremely close to an unfiltered look into the soul of the person being asked. Because it is not tied to any sort of political, religious or moral belief, it flies under the radar of those on alert for serious questions requiring one to reference their internal checklist of what they’re “supposed to say” in a way that questions like “Do you believe in life after death?” just can’t.

The answer to this question is rarely one that requires a great amount of internal debate. Upon asking someone, you will most likely receive an immediate and firm decision. “Gummy bears, of course. What kind of moron would like gummy worms better?” Or, “Gummy worms, dude. Without question!” Upon receiving a response, a great number of assumptions can be made about the subject.

First, gummy bear people are at heart conservative, and gummy worm people liberal. The difference lies in the type of person who is willing and eager to eat a bear (a cute, non-threatening, friendly creature flavored to taste like a familiar fruit, such as a
strawberry), and the person who is chomping at the bit to consume a worm, an animal considered to be “gross” by many, which is often flavored in an “extreme” manner, involving combinations of flavors, sourness, and/or adjectives and “exciting” improper grammar attached to the name of a familiar fruit, thereby radicalizing it. (i.e. gut-bustin’ grape or out-o’-control orange mango.)

In general, gummy bear people are not quite as fun as gummy worm people, but they are much more stable, reliable, and trustworthy whereas those of the gummy worm-loving persuasion are more prone to flights of fancy. Gummy bear people romanticize the past, gummy worm people are riding a rocket-powered hang glider boldly into the future.

It should be noted that this difference in preference runs too deep to be changed, and that there should should be no attempt at a complete takeover of the gummy market by either side. This dichotomy in candy is just as essential to the human race as that between the democrats and republicans, comedy and tragedy, or nerds and jocks, and only through gummy bipartisanship can the world continue to function successfully. That being said, however, gummy worms are most definitely superior.