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OH GUM BALL YE FAITHFUL
The Fruit of All Evil
How I came to terms with these spiky little bastards
For whatever a man sows, that he will also reap. — Galatians 6: 7–8
Back in 1970, the front yard of my Missouri childhood home was looking naked and sad so my dad planted a sweet gum tree. Afterwards, not a day passed that Dad didn’t wish he had planted something else.
Anyone who asks, “what could be so bad about planting a sweet gum tree?” also asks, “why shouldn’t I stick this fork in the toaster?”
It’s the balls. The terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad sweet gum balls.
One-and-a-half-inches around and suspended on a slender stalk, each gum ball is actually dozens of fruits that have fused together. It is literally a GANG of seeds and they WILL take your turf.
Hence the scientific name for sweetgum, Liquidambar styraciflua, which is Latin for “30 foot tall pain in the ass.”
Don’t believe me — believe Wikipedia: “The long-persisting fallen spiked fruits can be unpleasant to walk on — sweet gum is banned in some places for this reason.”
Dad didn’t wear heavy canvas gloves because gum balls were “unpleasant.” It’s an angry fruit. It will cut a mother. These little bastards will leave painful pricks on your hands, feet, everywhere. How is this legal? Did we accidentally plant a broken glass tree?
Shove two armfuls of these demon spawn into a leaf bag, they will slice right through it. Fuck you, leaf bag. Contain me with plastic? You’re hilarious. Unpleasant? Like World War II was unpleasant.
Sweetgum balls should be banned EVERYWHERE.
When Dad planted our tree back in the Nixon era, there’s no way he could have imagined the massive, unholy ballapalooza to come. You know the ball pit at Chuck E. Cheese? Now imagine every ball in that pit covered with razor wire. That was our yard.
I can still see him in a parka and a stocking cap hunched over a rake for hours on the coldest days trying to corral that pile of medieval torture turds. Dad didn’t just rake gum balls, he…
