Chips on My Shoulder

While playing food matchmaker, I sorted through dozens of potential munchable snacks to pair with my lonely, unattached sandwich. I tried not to judge based on their appearance too much, instead weighing more heavily on the content of their character. My sandwich deserved something lean, healthy, and with more in the bag than just hot air. The usual suspects were destined to disappoint. Lays potato chips were all sauced up on high fructose corn syrup, and some of them were even baked! No artificial substance abusers for my sandwich. Sun chips, Wise chips, and even the ethnic Tostitos were all the same. And don't get me started on UTZ chips. How does one even pronounce that name? Uhhts (rhymes with butts), ooots (rhymes with boots), or is it pronounced like the worst medical conditions, in acronym form, U-T-Z (like a UTI with zing!)? It was beginning to look like my sandwich would be alone for the rest of its life (which approximately ended at 1:30 this afternoon and was shortly followed by a food coma).

Then, just as hope was nearly all lost, a light blue package caught my eye...after I threw my eye in the air. It introduced itself as "Flat Earth: Baked Veggie Crisps." I was intrigued by the name, and by the large ripe tomato pictured on the bag hovering beneath a fluffy cloud. "It's like chips, but made from veggies, that are flattened, like the earth, that floated down from heaven...??" I thought to myself out loud. Then, I turned it around and checked out its backside. No high fructose corn syrup listed. 10% of my daily value in Vitamins A and C. A good source of fiber! This could be the one my sandwich has been waiting for. Before I could second guess myself, I purchased the Flat Earth and rested it in my lunch sack (but not my nut sack; that's reserved for almonds) right next to my sandwich to let them get acquainted.

Next came the moment of truth. Seated in the middle of the park on a My Little Pony blanket, my picnic spread out before me, I reached for the little blue bag of chips and ventured to find out, "are you the one?" And the answer is definitely helllz noo! They tasted worse than tear gas in Ecuador. Forget veggie chips or earth chips or whatever these deceptive little things were, I'd be more satisfied eating paint chips. They tasted just as processed, excessively salty, and unhealthy as all the other chips in the sea. Where were the fresh organic ingredients and rich flavors I so hoped for? On a farm five hours away perhaps. Then I realized, these little suckers were from Plano, Texas and brought to me by none other than Frito-Lay.

I haven't felt this cheated since Kelly left Zack for Jeff or when mom told me there'd be no presents for Christmas 'cuz Santa was too busy being drunk. "But I was so good this year!" "Good at being a brat! Now eat your string beans!!" All that time I was hoping that Flat Earth could be the answer to Lays chips, the counter to the culture, the David to the Goliath, standing up for health-conscious, anti-corporate consumers that still wanted snack food that wouldn't cause bloating. And instead, it turned out to be just the opposite. I thought they were competing with Frito-Lay, but they were Frito-Lay, pretending to compete with itself. They were the devil in disguise; and I didn't notice the horns sticking out.

Pictured on the bag, right above the fluffy cloud, is the silhouette of Babe the pig with wings on its back, soaring in the skies, as if to say "yah, when pigs fly, buddy...hehe snort..." And the slogan for these deceptichips which I failed to notice on first glance: "Impossibly good." Yes, that's right because it's impossible that these could be considered good. And they're "naturally flavored." If something has to be "flavored," it usually means it ain't natural. But I should've been clued off by the name in the first place. What in the world does Flat Earth mean? Clearly, Colombus settled that debate centuries ago. So the only thing it could mean is that idiotic corporate marketers are pandering to the organic food snobiety using fake buzz words like earth and veggie and fresh. I'm surprised they didn't just package the bag in processed hemp. Or stick a picture of starving brown children on the front and say some of the proceeds will go to somebody's children somehwere in the world, but mostly Plano, Texas.

Insincerity rings true in corporate America. Who are they kidding with this euphemistic Frito-Lay moniker? They're more like Fried-Fuck.