Tastes like sugar

Last night I went to Cambridge Naturals to get a refill of my daily multi-vitamin. After prying my way through the safety seal and the wad of cotton before breakfast this morning, I discovered an object with which I once had a very close acquaintance: the silica gel pack.

When I was about six, I somehow got ahold of a bottle of vitamins—or maybe it was something else, I don’t remember but whatever it was had one of the silica packs. Anyway, I thought the silica pack looked like a single serving piece of candy, so I ate the whole thing. Down the hatch. Noticing that I was chewing on something, my mother figured out what I’d done, promptly had a small coronary and called poison control, who told her to feed me lots of oatmeal. Not feeling sick in the slightest, I had no clue why she was so upset. I was only disappointed that the silica hadn’t tasted like candy. It turned out fine. But now I smile whenever I see a silica gel pack.