Without thinking, you unwrap the gum and slip it in your mouth. It has a strong peppermint taste: hot, but not unpleasant. Chewing idly, you go back to wondering who runs this place, and where all the staff are.
It's only a few minutes later that you realize exactly what you're doing. You're chewing a stick of gum you found in a strange-looking packet in a joke store. Who's to say that it was another customer who left it on the arm of the chair? Perhaps it was a store employee. Perhaps it's one of the store's products. It probably has a chili center, or it'll turn your mouth blue, or...
But you don't get the change to follow your train of thought any further. Because at that moment, the flavor of the gum suddenly changes. Involuntarily, your nose twitches at the new taste. It tastes like...