Crunch

“Hello my name is Matt and I love potato chips.”

I feel so guilty every time I buy potato chips in the store or munch at them when they inevitably arrive with a sandwich when I am out to eat.

At the store I try to hide the bag under lettuce or behind the toilet paper. That way when I get to the check out line I can look at them like “How did those get in there?” I look forward to the day when I have kids with me at the store and can say that Junior must have put them in the cart when I wasn’t looking.

Once I have kids I can then stop justifying it to myself that we are having people over this weekend and they might want to have some. Or, I don’t feel like walking to the back of the store to return them so I should just buy them. I can blame it on the kids.

I sheepishly add them to the conveyor belt where all my purchases stand to be scanned by the cashier after being scanned by the eyes of other shoppers who must be secretly judging me based on my purchases. I bury the incriminating bag deep in my shopping bag. I quickly walk out of the store avoiding the stares of the other shoppers as they scream “Hypocrite!” to me. I preach healthy eating and living but am brought to my knees by thinly sliced spuds fried and seasoned.

I rush to the car and in my hurry, the potato chip bag just happens to land next to me. They taunt me. “You’ve had a bad day, try me.” “You just had a harrowing experience at the grocery store, take comfort with me.” Sometimes they get angry, “Eat me!” I give in, I have to taste them for freshness after all don’t I?

I arrive home in a shame spiral. Greasy crumbs on my face and a tattered shiny bag (empty of course) on the floor mat.

I walk into the kitchen and fall to my knees in anguish and slightly because of the stabbing stomach pains that follow eating an entire bag of potato chips. I look up to the ceiling and scream: “Why!?!?” Exasperated, I wonder how these potato chips have gained so much control over me. Why do I always succumb to the temptation? I clench my stomach and fall to the cool linoleum.

I know how I ended up in this state. Curled on the kitchen floor with grease stained fingers and sweat on my brow. It’s the salty crunchy delicious ease of the potato chip. It’s a quick snack with everything our bodies crave – fat and salt. For me, it is the added benefit of the crunch. I love it! I have always enjoyed crunchy foods – nuts, pretzels, and of course chips.

There are healthier ways to get the necessary fats and salts we need in our diet. In fact, in the standard Western diet we have too much of both. I need to focus on the other elements of the potato chip - ease and crunch -  to get over the sirens song of the rustling potato chip bag.

My answer comes in an unexpected way. In my collapse to the floor, I placed the bags on the counter and they have now toppled because of how they were precariously perched. A giant bag of carrots falls to the floor in front of my face. The answer has arrived.

I pick myself up from the floor, dust myself off and raise my hand triumphantly that I shall overcome the potato chip obsession. I reach for a knife and cutting board to cut and trim all the carrots into bite sized sticks to keep in a bag in the fridge. I now have a healthy crunchy snack that I can easily munch on when the urge hits.

Now the only bag in my cart when I go to the grocery store is a gleaming bag of orange carrots that I can proudly put on the conveyor belt at the store as I whirl around to wave to the applauding onlookers confirming my healthy purchase.

.: MF