Enlightenment through Snack Food Consumption

For quite a while, there has been something missing in my life, but I just couldn't place what it might be. I looked everywhere, from mindless sex and drug abuse to opera. Then one day, I was settling down to eat, in order to sustain my pitiful and meaningless life, and I stumbled across this on the back of my Cooler Ranch Doritos Brand Corn Chips:

"You want to be unique? Want to go beyond the range of normal human experience?"

I could not help but answer with as resounding of a yes as my inner emptiness would allow. I anxiously read on:

"Crank your favorite CD, kick back, and indulge yourself in the bold but cool taste of creamy buttermilk, cheese, tomatoes and onions."

I had some cheese whiz and tomatoes in the refrigerator, but I had to confess that I had neither buttermilk nor onions. I quickly drove to the grocery store and purchased a pound of onions and a gallon of buttermilk: I wanted there to be no danger that I would indulge myself in the bold but cool taste too little and thus miss out on going beyond the range of normal human experience.

I ran home, put in my recording of Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition and turned it up fairly high. I then stood at my kitchen table with the cheese whiz, buttermilk, tomatoes and onions piled high, ready to indulge. I propped one arm on the table for stability and then began violently kicking my left leg backward. When that leg got tired, I switched to the right. At one point, I think I kicked my dog, but that was no longer important to me.

As I feasted on the goodness of the tomatoes and onions, drenched in cheese whiz, with which one could say I was getting crazy, and washed it all down with generous swigs of buttermilk, all the while kicking back enthusiastically, I began to wonder if this was all that I had to do. I had a feeling that what I was doing was both unique and beyond the range of normal human experience, but I wanted to have everything the Doritos bag had to offer me.

I looked over to the bag -- at this point, I could not bear to keep this bag, this Scripture, far from me for long -- and saw that there was, in fact, another paragraph that I had missed! Praise the Corn Chips! It read as follows:

"Feeling loud yet? If not, eat more and turn it up!"

I had to admit that though I was feeling things I had never felt before, I was not yet feeling loud. I assumed that the music was what I had to turn up, so I ran over to the stereo, holding a half-eaten tomato in my hand and still kicking backward as often as I could and avoid falling. By this time, the recording was nearly over: a half-hour had slipped by and I was in such a state of bliss and inner peace that I had barely noticed. I put it back to the beginning and turned it up to the volume setting that the manual had said was usually reserved for those who were using the stereo as equipment to aid in demolishing condemned buildings.

As my house began to shake and collapse around me, I finished the last of the tomatoes and onions and squirted the rest of the cheese whiz into my mouth, washing it down with the remaining quarter of a gallon of buttermilk. I was feeling loud. I was going beyond the range of normal human experience. I had found what I was looking for.

Some might ask me why I would choose Doritos in my path toward meaning, especially the Cooler Ranch Flavor. I must admit that I don't fully understand Cooler Ranch Doritos yet. For instance, was the original Cool Ranch covenant effective, or did it merely anticipate the Cooler Ranch covenant? Can we expect a final Coolest Ranch? Those questions I leave to people wiser than I. All I know is that Cooler Ranch Doritos have changed my life, and though I have lost my dog, my house, and eventually the contents of my stomach, I still cling to the old rumpled bag, till my trophies at last I lay down. I will cling to the old crumpled bag, and exchange it one day for a crown!