Yesterday I stopped by a local discount store to buy gum balls: not the tiny ones that go in home gum ball dispensers, but rather the large kind that can really only be eaten one at a time if any conversation is to happen without drooling; the kind that sometimes are coated in sour dust, and other times contain small, sour-sweet nuggets of sugar-coated candy; the kind that you have to warm up for a while in your jeans pocket or your bra (with the wrapper still on, of course — I have a