A recent television commercial for gum told me that the average person has twenty eight first kisses.  Wow, Stride® Gum.  Way to make an impossible claim that will not only make every person feel ugly but also simultaneously puzzle people who know what numbers are and mean.  I believe that a person has one first of anything they do.  That is the reason that people have a numbering system for things and activities. For example, the first time that I visited Canada will always be 1999 when I went to Vancouver.  The first time I rode a bicycle was 1989, when my parents taught me in our front yard.  My first kiss will always have been in 1997, and will always have been in a phone booth of a fancy hotel.

This commercial should be preceded by a disclaimer telling the viewer that, in the following commercial, we will replace the term ‘first kiss’ with ‘relationship.’  Also, nobody can know the exact number of kisses that everyone on earth has had, but Stride believes that every person in America is…promiscuous.  If the commercial, however, actually believes that a person can have a first anything more than once, they should be advertising a more progressive view of life.  Maybe the commercial was a subliminal advertisement for the Eastern idea of Karma.  I haven’t seen many commercials for Eastern Asian philosophy, but I am all for one:

“Chew our gum and a Sadguru will stop ritualistically killing you.  Also it is sugar-free so you won’t die of diabetes anymore.”

Whatever Stride Gum actually believes, it has taught me a lot.  I have had about eight or nine girlfriends. Therefore, I’ve had that many first kisses.  I don’t think my breath was minty fresh for any of them.  Now, I have no girlfriends.  I see a correlation that has nothing to do with stupidity, naivety, or mastery of the Russian language. My relationships have all failed because of my bad breath.