I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, "Barb, why is your tongue blue?" Have I been licking the sky? Giving blowjobs to Smurfs? Overdosing on Slushies? No, NO and no. I have been doing the Supertaster Test.
What is a supertaster? It's a person who has lots and lots of papillae on their tongue, which makes their sense of taste more acute. Makes sense. Thirty-five or more papillae in a 7mm hole radius makes you a supertaster (less than 15 and you're an undertaster).
The at home supertaster test sounds easy. Swab some blue food colouring on your tongue near the front, put one of those binder page reinforcer stickers on your tongue and count the number of papillae on your tongue (the blue dye makes those little pink bumps easier to see).
If you're going to take this test, let me give you some words of advice. Do not do this in your newly cleaned kitchen, as you will get blue dye on your counter, which will probably stay there forever. Also, do not try and discipline your children whilst taking the supertaster test, as they will not take you seriously if you're yakking at them with a blue tongue. Also also, make sure that half the lightbulbs in your bathroom are not burnt out/missing, as you will look foolish squinting at yourself, mouth agape, trying to count those invisible tongue bumps.
In the end I had to get my sharp-eyed son to do the count. We have no binder-reinforcer sticker thingies, so I used a piece of 3 hole paper and placed it over my tongue. The hole in the piece of paper is a few mm. bigger than the size required for the test, but it had to do. In the end, I had blue fingers, a blue tongue, a blue counter, a 50 papillae count and a bewildered son. Not sure how accurate my son's bump count was in this very scientific test, but I'll go with it.
Gotta go. The Smurfs are on.
'Til next time,
B.
