My girlfriend back in the day loved Charm’s Blow Pops. I used to stop in the mornings on the way to pick her up for school and get her one. I’d hide it somewhere in the truck, and as she climbed in she would immediately begin searching the cab for it; pulling down visors, checking under ball caps, opening gloveboxes, etc. I never hid it too good though, because it would ruin it if she couldn’t find it. If she couldn’t find it I would miss out on seeing the joy something as insignificant as a sucker could put on that sweet little face, and it felt too good when I was able to start her day off with a smile to ever miss it.

Now, most any old owl will tell you it takes 3 licks to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop.

“One, two, three… crunch!”

But don’t blow it, sucker. Take this sage old redneck’s advice and get her a Blow Pop instead.

You‘ll thank me for it later.

How many licks does it take to get to the Tootsie Roll center of a Tootsie Pop? As the Owl says in the classic commercial, "The world may never know."

Truth be told, all tongues, levels of mouth Ph, and saliva glands are as different as trailer parks are to gated communities. These differences make it is virtually impossible to come up with a concrete number of licks it will take to get to the chocolaty, sticky, goodness that is the center of a Tootsie Pop. Consider the following examples:

John, a middle aged man who brushes and flosses regularly, eats a healthy diet, and receives regular dental care may be licking that sucker to the tune of a couple hundred licks leaving his tongue raw and bleeding like skin exposed to a sandblaster.

Bob, a middle aged man who doesn't believe in that new fangled science called dentistry, has a taste for methamphetamine, Jack Daniels, hand rolled cigarettes, and avoids eating anything that doesn't have enough additives and preservatives to survive into the next ice age. In short, the carcinogenic environment of Bob's mouth could melt the bumper of a '59 Cadillac. A poor Tootsie Pop exposed to the caustic environment of Bob's mouth may not be able to withstand more than a couple dozen licks.

As you can see, thanks to the varied fauna that exists within all human mouths there is a wide difference between the potential number of licks it will take to get to the Tootsie Roll center of a Tootsie Pop.

This science lesson has been brought to you by Urban Idiot Labs: If you see us running you'd better try to keep up.

Lick it once

Twice

Thrice

Again

And again

One more time

It's still standing, so you give up and smash it with a mallet. Thus, it takes six times, until the anger takes over.

"Louis," a voice whined from the kitchen. Sighing, I shut my book and made my way to the door.

"Yeah?"

"I have a question!"

"What is it?" Amara waddled over and rocked on the balls of her feet in front of me.

"How many licks does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop?" Amara lifted her head, looking expectedly at me. I shrugged. Was she serious?

"I don't know," I replied. "Why do you need to know?"

"Because!" I shook my head. Where she came up with these questions, I had no clue. I went back to the living room and pulled out my laptop.

Turns out, she wasn't the first one to ask this question. Universities actually performed studies on this. The numbers ranged from 364 to as high as 1,000. Pulling out a scrap of paper and a pencil, I began averaging all the answers out. Amara watched me, eyes wide as saucers.

"480 licks on average!" I sank back in my chair and looked at Amara. She gaped at me lime I was the next Einstein. Her face broke into a large smile.

"Thanks Louis!" Amara skipped out of the room, looking as bright as the sun. A smile crept onto my face. She was so absurd sometimes but it's worth it to see her smile.