Many high school students have experienced it: sitting in class, doing work and deciding to pull out a pack of gum from your backpack. Before you can even unwrap a piece, a swarm of students with open palms surround you. Once you start handing gum out, more people come to get their share, and by the time you get to chew your gum, you’re already down a fourth of the pack. 

Giving out gum has become the polite thing to do, a regular social norm of high school now, similar to giving someone a spare pencil or a Chromebook charger. But it’s gotten out of hand. It’s not a strange occurrence to see people walk across a classroom because they’ve heard somebody might have gum. People now feel the need to lie about not having gum to avoid giving four people a piece every hour of the school day.

There’s nothing wrong with asking a friend to lend you a piece of gum. The problem is the reaction some people have when being told no. It’s already awkward enough to turn somebody down when they ask for a piece of gum, but the practice of breaking a person’s will down until they give in is becoming too commonplace. Asking someone over and over, or begging for a piece ‘just this one time’ is unnecessary. Gum isn’t needed to get through the day, and, as obvious as it may be, nobody’s entitled to a piece of Extra spearmint. 

Some students are experiencing a growing entitlement to someone else’s gum. To them, gum is an essential item to the school day, so it can be seen as a personal slight to deny someone gum if you have some. There’s nothing wrong with giving gum or asking for a piece of gum from a friend, but let’s think twice before pestering everyone in your class just because you forgot to buy some.