I forgot I had posted this on my flickr account nearing two years ago and a fan suggested I toss this up here for the bloggers! Witness my life or death struggle with a jawbreaker the size of a toddler's head!

 

Day 1: I size up my foe. A jawbreaker the size of a baseball. Few people I know could fit this sucker in their mouths, and I wish they would. Not only would it please me to no end, but it would also shut them up for awhile. Anyway, the gobstopper in it's pure, perfectly spherical, and global purity. I'll ruin that quickly enough.

 

Day 1 evening: The beast is wounded. My tongue is bleeding but that's not as photogenic. My hands and most everything I was wearing at the moment is covered in white goo. Just a fleshwound.

 

Day 2: My tongue, weary from the previous nights battle, struggled on gainly and put a nice dent in the mighty, sugary armour of this delicious foe. After a few minutes, my tongue stated bleeding again and I think I tore that whatchamacalit that connects your tongue to the floor of your mouth. I fight a dangerous enemy.

 

Day 3: IT BLEEDS! A good hours worth of work got me this far and a rather tender tongue again. And just to inject a little education into the project, licking something until your tongue is raw, then eating anything with hot sauce on it is a recipe for a new kind of pain.

 

Day 4: Another layer down. The outer layers are beginning to remind me of phyllo.

 

Day 5: Another night, a few more colourful rings. I'm guessing we're about 1/5 of the way through this bad boy. My tongue is fully healed and in fighting shape, but I think our hard candy friend is luring me into a false sense of security.

 

Day 6: Looks moldy and disgusting, but it's still quite tasty. Slowly but surely, Goliath shall fall.

 

Day 7: Looking twice as moldy and unappealing, but still muy delicioso. I may have been over-stating earlier when a believed myself to be 1/5 of the way through. I think now I may be closer to that goal looking at the sucker in profile. This is war after all, we're in it until someone dies or gives up and signs the treaties.

 

Day 8: As the inner layers get thinner, they get even more unappealing when moist and exposed. But don't we all.

 

Day 8 con't: Just a progress report. After a good week of carefree sucking and licking (yeah, I said it), this is how far we've come. Wow.. I pulled off a TRIPLE entendre.

 

Day 9: The southern hemisphere of the gobstopper enters it's death throes. And they are not pretty. The beautiful concentric rings of colour and flavour have given up their pretense and are becoming more and more grotesque as their will for beauty wanes. Goes to show ya, even the most pure looking person on the outside can be filled with crusty candy rings. I think Kirkegaard said that.

 

Day 10: I think those few crusty layers were some kind of defense mechanism. Bravely striding past it, it's gone back to being purty again.

 

Day 11: Slower and tougher going. A war of attrition indeed. It's been decided that if concessions are not made soon, I will enact a scorched earth policy upon Candyland.

 

Day 12: The whole thing is tasting a lot like licorice now for some reason, and I friggin' hate licorice. Another one of those crafty defense mechanisms. Nice try, gobstopper. Nice try.

 

Day 13: Not a huge amount of damage tonight, but check this out; I think I've found the prize in the center of this behemoth. Reaching this monumental landmark, I've decided instead of trying to make it into a sphere once again, I'll just continue this course straight through. Let it never be said I was never open to new ideas.

 

Day 13 con't: Just a close up of my jawbreaker friend's little black nubbin. Oddly, it fell off when I started fidgeting around with it. Guess I can't have nice things. (Fun little note: I called the nubbin a nipple in a previous edit, and it immediately got more views than any other in the series in 5 minutes. Perverts.)

 

Day 14: The halfway point behind me, and my tongue sore and I think swollen, I'm taking the easy way through. I'm hoping to get a cool little quarter of a jawbreaker before long, giving me a nifty cross-section.

 

Day 15: I've all but ruined the interesting little reservoir and I lost the nubbin. I'm full of self-loathing, but at least I got my sugar fix for the evening, so how can I not be content?

 

Day 16: Another chink in the armour. (I had a killer migraine this day, so pardon the lack of pith and smarm. I couldn't even manage snarky, and I love snarky. Stupid head.)

 

Day 17: Nom nom nom. Took a hefty chunk out of this one watching the final cinematics of Lost Odyssey. I've seen a lot of interesting things while working on this bad boy, and odd how I now equate the taste of this thing to those memories. {/deep} {/nerd}

 

Day 18: Almost at the 1/4 mark. The excitement is palpable. At least I think that's what that sensation is..

 

Day 19: At the 1/4 mark, I find myself at a crossroads. Do I continue this big sucker lengthwise, or as I discovered, I can gnaw out the inner layers outward like a big candy onion. A disgusting analogy I know. 

 

Day 20: Having changed my mind roughly 6 times on how to finish the big guy off (ew), I've taken 2 paths at once. On my flanking attack, the centre layers invariably become weakened, so I send my disposable legions to pick out the layers as they fall. Much maniacal laughter ensues, as it often does at my place. Daily in fact.

 

Day 21: In it's last attempt at a defense (it's licorice-flavoured layer forcibly removed), the jawbreaker has contorted itself into an shield. A mighty aegis of sugar! A stout bulwark of confection! I hear it's an epic drop.

 

Day 22: What once was a softball size jawbreaker, now must be gingerly balanced on my fingertips to be photogenic. I'm so proud my myself, in a sad kind of way.

 

Day 23: I can finally fit what's left of this thing into my maw. I think this might be the last night for it. Not sure what I can do as a final photo since it's physical form will be nil. Maybe my candy-coating tongue, or my next big dentist bill. Whatever is more interesting I guess.

 

Day 24: The jawbreaker's last hurrah. About 2 seconds before I gave it the final chomp and gave it an honourable death. A soldier's death.

 

Prologue: Almost a month together. I've had relationships that haven't lasted that long, and I didn't spend NEAR that amount of time licking her constantly. Well there was that one gal... but that's for a future photo journal project. We did take pictures after all and after you break up, all bets are off! I smell a blackmail opportunity.

 

That's everything. For whatever reason you'd like to see the hi-res versions, head on over to my Flickr:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/pawdugan/sets/72157603894510713/

 

See you all after the holiday!

--Paw