As many of you may know, I am very much in favor of gum. Unfortunately, when you chew as much gum as I do, it is easy to become bored with the traditional flavors: spearmint, peppermint, wintergreen. I'm always on the lookout for new, zesty flavors of gum, which is how I discovered Chiclets Citrus Samba.

I admit, however, that new, zesty gum flavors are hard to come by, since many non-traditional gum flavors taste like ass. Dentyne Wild Cherry, for example. It's like chewing cough syrup. A safer bet is to stick with citrus flavors.

Which brings me back to Citrus Samba. The package has a picture of an orange, a lemon, a lime and a grapefruit (or possibly another orange). That's pretty much what the flavor is, a generic citrus blend. Nothing to write home about, but hey, it's just gum, so stop complaining.

What irks me are the chiclets on the front of package. Since the flavor is called Citrus Samba, I would have expected the chiclets to be dancing a samba or at least be identifiably Brazilian. But no. On the top left we have the Boy Chiclet with his Tony Manero hair and his Disco Stu medallion. While admittedly he is dancing, it's a patented Saturday Night Fever boogie down move, not a samba.

The Girl Chiclet isn't much better, what with her flower scrunchie and broad-rimmed sunglasses. Maybe she was supposed to be the Chiclet from Ipanema, but she looks more like the Chiclet from the O.C. instead. A chiclet who ditched 5th period trig to shop the sale rack at Hot Topic.