Who would’ve thought that being made to eat dirt and grass by bullies in grade school would come in handy someday?
Thanks to those bullies, who can still kick my ass, but still can’t write a better book report than me, I can determine the authenticity of some of the jelly bean flavors found in a box of Bertie Bott’s Beans, which regular Impulsive Buy reader, Lucy, suggested I try.
For those who aren’t familiar with Bertie Bott’s Beans, eating a box of them is like playing jelly bean Russian Roulette.
You can be happy eating one of the normal flavors: blueberry, cherry, cinnamon, grape jelly, green apple, lemon drop, toasted marshmallow, buttered popcorn, and tutti-fruitti.
Or you can die eating one of the abnormal flavors: black pepper, booger, earthworm, dirt, ear wax, grass, sardine, soap, spaghetti, spinach, and vomit.
Fortunately, there’s a flavor guide on the back of each box, but I didn’t bother looking at it because I’m a man who likes to live his life dangerously by doing crazy things, like reading a chapter of Dianetics and calling grade school bullies “pussies.”
As I went through the box of Bertie Bott’s Beans, I tried to figure out each flavor. I got almost all of the normal flavors correct, but I had a lot of problems with the abnormal flavors.
The easiest ones to figure out were black pepper, dirt, grass, sardine, soap, spaghetti, and spinach. However, booger, earthworm, ear wax, and vomit were hard to figure out, because I’ve never tried boogers, earthworms, and ear wax. As for the vomit jelly beans, I couldn’t recognize it because it didn’t have that distinct vodka flavor that my vomit usually has.
Individually, the abnormal jelly beans are tolerable, but I wondered how tolerable they would be if I mixed them all together.
So I grabbed a black pepper, booger, earthworm, dirt, ear wax, grass, sardine, soap, spaghetti, spinach, and vomit jelly bean, headed towards the bathroom, and kneeled over the toilet. For two minutes, I prepared myself for the concoction I was about to put into my mouth.
“How bad it could be?” I thought to myself. After all, I’ve recently stuck mint flavored condoms, habanero beef jerky, and potato chips made with Olestra into my mouth, so a few abnormal jelly beans shouldn’t be so bad. Then I took a deep breath and slammed the handful of jelly beans into my mouth.
About one second and one chew later, I violently spit out the jelly beans into the toilet. The spitting was closely followed by several dry heaves. The dry heaves were closely followed by tears in my eyes.
I began to wonder if I would finally find out what vodka-less vomit tastes like. Fortunately, I didn’t find out.
After making sure my dinner wasn’t going to make a reappearance, I ran to the bathroom sink, grabbed my toothbrush, squirted on my toothbrush way more toothpaste than the American Dental Association recommends, and brushed my teeth like I just French kissed a drunken Courtney Love and a pre-TrimSpa Anna Nicole Smith.
I could say that the taste of it was repulsive, but I think that would be an understatement. I think if death has a taste, it would probably taste much like what I experienced.
Item: Harry Potter Bertie Bott’s Beans
Purchase Price: $1.99 (1.6 ounce box)
Rating: 7 out of 10
Pros: Great gag gift to give. Realistic normal flavors. Blueberry rocks.
Cons: Horrible gag gift to receive. Realistic abnormal flavors. Mixing abnormal flavors. Dry heaving from mixing abnormal flavors.