Second Chance Spree

By Eliza Jordan | ejordan@flagler.edu

Sometimes giving it a second chance isn’t always the best route.

Today was the last day that I have ever and will ever taste a Spree candy.
It was my last attempt to see if I didn’t like the colorful, bitter taste that I had remembered tasting years before.

I popped the little green Spree in my mouth. Apple, almost. I was expecting it to taste somewhat like a green apple SourHead. Maybe even an original apple lollipop.

Hmm.. I thought. Not so bad. But just then, I tasted the taste. Grainy and almost sour, I remembered the taste of the little Spree candy from years ago.

It was purple then. Round and plump, the Spree candy felt dense in the palm of my hand.

I remembered thinking: Will this be the gross grape flavor I taste when I have to drink cough medicine?
Will it be so over-powering that I will get sick off of the grape sugar?

I anticipated a taste before I ever even knew what to expect the texture to feel like. I had an expectation of this little Spree candy that was beyond what I could expect, having not tasted it before.

But the three seconds of the Spree’s taste lasts just that long, and before I knew it, all I could taste was the sugar grains in my teeth. I had the exact same thought twice. I re-tried something that I knew I didn’t like upon first try.

But this time, I thought, the little tangy candy was green. That has to make somewhat of a difference at least. Tainted forever, just because of a bad first go-around? No, I said to myself. Can’t be.

My first attempt at something was unpleasant and I knew instantly that I did not like it. I didn’t make up an excuse for not liking it and I didn’t plan on trying it again. So for years, I didn’t.

But that is logical, and so it brought up a following question.

How many other people attempt something for a second chance, yet are highly disappointed when it turns out to be just like the first try? Hundreds. Thousands.

The thought that I didn’t want to rule it out of my life overpowered my remembrance of the first unpleasant attempt.

But expectations always build up so much anticipation. You think it’s going to be one way, and just as you are deep in your thought of it being that certain way, it changes. Your whole perception of reality is then thrown off.

Both times when I tried the little Sprees, I expected them to taste different, of course, but always a certain way. Both times, however, I was wrong.

Haven’t you ever tried something; a food choice, a topic of conversation, an activity and then tried it again after it failed the first time and remembered, “Hey, this is why I didn’t like this in the first place”? I have too.

And after the second attempt, I walk away thinking: my, if I would have followed my first reaction, there would have been no need for an attempted second chance.

This is the type of self-realization we all need sometimes: Be in tune with your intuition and stray away from sneaky second chances.