My Experiences with Chips
Chips are pretty good. I can remember some different moments in life that are chips-related. Here are some such moments:
I lived in a duplex and sometimes hung out with my neighbor. I think we were the same age but I really don’t remember her ever going to school and don’t remember her being home-schooled. Her mother forced her to take piano lessons. I think her name was Jenny or if not that, something else equally messed up. Anyway, a moment that really stands out:
Jenny and I were sitting in her screened-in-porch. I was probably looking for lizards. She was eating a bag of normal tortilla chips with salsa (I had no idea what this was — to me this was probably some kind of poison). Jenny couldn’t stop eating this combo. I feel like we were sitting out there doing nothing for about an hour and there was never a break from the chips. Slowly, Jenny began to feel really sick. She looked like she was in a trance and she was groaning. I probably just froze up, unable to process whatever was happening or maybe just didn’t care. She finally threw up all over the porch and that was that.
Some facts I remember about this girl:
She was half Filipino and she had a book of Taylor Dayne sheet music for piano. I went over to her house once (crossed the driveway) and she showed me this book. She played from it and it made me feel weird like maybe I was supposed to be impressed? I liked to go over to Jenny’s house because her parents bought lots of beef jerky and I could eat as much as I wanted. I can almost remember the beef jerky packaging.
Around the same time period, I used to ride my bike to this tall white girl’s house. She had a Tandy computer with a Mad Libs type game and I was very interested in both items. I think her name was Lisa. Her house was a little messy and disgusting. Her mom was a racist.
Lisa and I would play the Mad Libs game and laugh so hard. It was all barf and diarrhea related. One time Lisa was eating some potato chips (probably finished the whole family-sized bag) but she was dipping them into something white that I’d never seen before. She said it was mayonnaise. She really loaded up those chips. To me this was really strange and I instead tried to focus on the computer monitor — the beautiful orange text on a matte charcoal background. Lisa offered me some mayonnaise and I felt really grossed out. There was no way I could put that smooth stuff in my mouth. And there was no way I was going to ruin chips forever:
I tried this later in life and it’s really disgusting for many different reasons. I don’t think this is a winning combination. You might disagree.
1st major chip memory:
Cool Ranch Doritos had just been released. At this time my diet primarily consisted of Pepsi and ketchup. There were certain things that needed to be done with different foods:
Pepsi had to be in a bowl and I had to drink it from a spoon (aka soup).
Bread — crust had to be removed and I had to smash it flat with my feet before I could eat it.
At first I was fine with eating Doritos like normal. They had such a good flavor. But something changed. I was nervous because the goldfish I’d won at the May Fair grew too large and had started eating each other. I had visions of them secretly jumping into my shoes when I wasn’t looking. Then I would slip my foot into one shoe and my whole foot would touch a fish! That’s still so nasty. So these were stressful times. I no longer had the desire to eat the actual chip, I just wanted the Cool Ranch flavor in my mouth:
I would open the bag of Doritos and pull out a chip. I would lick all the seasoning off the chip. I would put the chip back in the bag. I would do this for a long time. I feel bad about myself. :(
(this doesn’t make me feel bad anymore)Even today I have my issues with chips. I just took a bunch of vitamins in an attempt to cure my severe depression and then accidentally ate most of a bag of pita chips. Had no idea what was going on. Imagined that I was only eating a few but they were soooo crunchy and I am soooo sad. :( :( :(
Just went to the drug store from the wrong time period to get some things to help me stop coughing. I couldn’t resist looking in the chip aisle. They all looked so amazing and crunchy. I normally only buy chips from this place if they’re priced wrong and I was in luck today. Got some kind of trashy ancient grain jalapeno chips that are more like thin crackers. When I got home, I made sure to interact with the cats and then grabbed my laptop, searched for jobs, and cracked open that bag of chips. I ate them really fast but didn’t eat the whole bag. They are pretty spicy and ended up making my nose run which was a blessing. Sometimes chips can make me feel sick or make me feel bad about myself but today they really helped with my congestion issues.
I used to go to Kroger for the bulk of my grocery shopping but it got too messed up. There’s something really wrong with people who shop there and I think they’ve all been poisoned. One thing that really used to annoy me about Kroger was the chip aisle. It was always way overcrowded by man, woman, and child. Couples would argue about which flavor they wanted to purchase. Having to hear these loud extroverts discussing chips was way too depressing. We stopped being funny together.
I know other people have really personal experiences with chips. My friend told me that she used to eat chips and drink a coca cola for lunch every day at the peak of her young adult depression. Seems like a pretty normal lunch to me. Maybe minus the soda. I wonder if most people always have a soda with chips. I’m not that kind of person.
I’m not really interested in eating chips in the morning. I probably could be persuaded to eat chips, queso, and salsa though.
In the early 90’s I would walk home from school, bust open a can of Pringles, and watch Batman: The Animated Series (with Catwoman). This was always the highlight of my day. Pringles are very easy to eat and satisfying. The shape conforms to your tongue making it very easy to throw the whole can of chips down your throat very quickly. They are so thin that it’s fun to eat a few at a time (maybe I’m making that part up — I’ve never eaten a Pringle. I made up that i’ve never done that before. I made up that i’ve never tasted them).
Working in an office environment was a real shock to me. Almost everybody I worked with was completely brain dead and sloppy. One day I was in my co-worker’s cubicle notarizing documents that she had executed, and noticed she had a huge bag of weird-shaped Cheetos on her desk. The bag was really crumpled and well-loved. She was a strange girl and didn’t like it when I tried to talk to her (which made me talkative). Anyway, we were signing/notarizing and she got hungry and opened up the Cheetos. The smell was a weird mixture of chemicals. She kept throwing them into her mouth and barely chewing over and over really fast. Her fingers were covered in the orange poisonous powder in no time. When her fingers reached the maximum coverage, she licked off the orange crust. When no longer fluorescent, she dug around in the chip bag again. Most of these documents were seasoned with an orange Cheeto powder rub. It was shocking, disgusting, hypnotizing.
I have a neighbor who relies on social security benefits and I purchase chips for him weekly as this is the only food source he cares about and sometimes I like to give the people what they want. When I purchase original Lay’s chips for him, I’m always slightly jealous because I long for those salty thin chips to fill up all the spaces in my upgraded teeth; however, I also understand that they’re a stomach bomb.
I have been a prisoner of North Texas for many years and continue to have experiences with chips. Luckily I’ve maintained low quality employment and my chip issues don’t seem that extreme compared to the standard Texan chip experiences. I invite all humans or computer simulations to send me their chip experiences so we can connect.
