Mystery #127 – Jell-o

Joey Presents: Great Mysteries of the Universe
Mystery #127 – Jell-o

When I was a kid I read a lot. Because of this, my vocabulary grew much faster than other kids my age. In the fifth grade, when asked to describe ourselves with one word, my classmates used “fun” and “athletic” and “smart”; I wrote “conservative”.

It was from a book that I first learned the word “congealed”. On its own it’s a pretty nasty word - just saying it forces your face into a disgusted snarl. It didn’t help, then, that the exact context of this introduction was in describing a corpse. I remember to this day reading “congealed blood”, scratching my head, and heading to a dictionary. What followed was a horrifyingly detailed mental picture. Admittedly, the book was probably a little mature for me (the back cover had a dragon on it and I had assumed it was a kid’s book. I didn’t yet understand that some grownups are still nine inside) but the damage was done. To this day “congealed” brings to mind rotting corpses, their jellied fluids pooling around them like animal fat put into the fridge.

Understandably, Jell-o was never my favorite. Most things you have to cook, but Jell-o prepares itself. How is that not dismaying to anyone but me? Anything that behaves like week-old bodily remains with only the aid of a refrigerator should never be consumed, period. It’s probably ironic or something that this detail grosses me out more than what gelatin is actually made of. Feed me bone dust all day, just make sure it doesn’t jiggle.