The Sixth Nonsense

Story Sent in by Ross:

When we sat down over tea on our date, I asked Miranda what was new. She was very excited to tell me, "I invented a sixth taste bud."

That was odd. I asked, "There are more than four?"

She said, "Sweet, sugar, salty, bitter, sour, and now my new sixth one."

"Sweet and sugar are the same one, I think."

"They're not. Ready to know the sixth one?"

"Sure. Hit me."

She stuck her tongue out and folded it back in on itself. "Get it?" she asked me, "It's tongue! The taste of tongue, itself. It's like a combination of all the other flavors. It tastes itself."

It was the stupidest thing I'd ever heard. "That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard," I said.

"Go on and taste your own. Go ahead."

Reluctantly, I did what she did and rolled my tongue back on itself. Tasted like... my mouth. Yum!

"It tastes like tongue!" she practically shouted. "The astonishing sixth taste bud!"

Did I mention she was hot? I asked her, "Mine's not really flavorful... maybe I could taste yours?"

Surprisingly, she was too smart for that. She said, "Nice try. It's okay. You don't have to believe me. I'm gonna get rich off this."

"How?"

"Marketing it."

"Your... tongue?"

"No. The flavor. Sweet has candy, sugar has sugar, salty has salt, bitter has lemon, sour has old milk. Tongue flavor will have something and once I find out what that is, it'll be huge. You watch."

She then sipped at her tea and actually burnt her tongue on it.

She was nuts, but like I said, she was hot. I asked her out a second time and we went to a street fair (whenever she bought something to eat, she was sure to test it for "tongue flavor"). She was ultimately too nuts for me, but if you start seeing tongue-flavored chocolates and tongue-flavored breakfast cereals, you heard it here first.