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In the Chips

Have you noticed that potato chip bags have been steadily shrinking for the past few years? Used to be, for $.99 you got about a 17 pound bag of potato chips. I'm talking Lay's potato chips (no one can eat just one!) Then for some reason (I guess potatoes just suddenly started costing 20 times what they used to) that big bag started costing about $4.

Then a few years ago, the marketing wiz' at Frito-Lay decided to play some mind games, I guess to keep us from realizing that they were raising prices, and invented this new size bag, that cost the magical $.99. It held about double what we used to get in vending machines or our lunchboxes when I was a kid. I think this was labelled 'The Big Munch' or something stupid like that.

The other day, I'm down at the sub shop and I figure I'll grab a 'Big Munch' to go with my turkey sub. I was shocked to see that the $.99 bag from Frito-Lay is now about equal size to what we used to get in the vending machine or in our lunchbox!!!

So somebody please tell me -- how much can it POSSIBLY cost to slice up about a 20th of a medium sized potato and fry it, stick it in a little bag and leave it to rot on the sub shop rack!?!?!?!

I mean, we talking POTATOES here right? Lowly tubers that sprout like weeds. Did these hunks of carbo suddenly become some exotic species or something?

So what are our alternatives to the overpriced Frito-Lay fried spuds?? Well, let's see....we can pay even MORE exorbitant prices for 'boutique' locally-produced brands like 'Cape Cod' chips. I'll admit that I like Cape Cod chips, although they can be a bit stout in texture, but again, the price is outrageous for these things.

Let me mention one more thing again -- these are POTATOES!!!!! Well, okay, they have to use OIL and SALT too....I guess that must be where all of this extra cost comes from...yeah, now that I think about it that HAS to be it OIL and SALT! Oh, and I'll bet these companies, ESPECIALLY the MegaSnackolopolis' like Frito-Lay, are paying TOP wages and BENEFITS to their Junior, Senior, and Principal 'Snackware Engineers'. And I'm probably totally discounting the cost of equipping and maintaining the laboratory conditions within which these things are produced -- specialized equipment and 'Snackware Development Technologies' whose costs have to be recouped within a reasonable business cycle. Why I have visions of 'Snackware Engineers', swaddled in enviro suits, moving efficiently from clean room to clean room, supervising millions of dollars worth of robotoid chip producing technology.

Now, let's talk about Fritos.......

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