Frito Lay Loves Me

Did you ever wonder about the differences in people’s taste? Apples or Oranges? Beer or Soda?
Probably not, it’s just me.
Years ago, I was working in a store with a group of mainly young adults, and desiring a snack as the evening wore on, one of staff volunteered to go across the street to a convenience store to grab up some chips or something. Wanting to fill my oral void, my taste buds shouted, “We’ll take some Cheetos, please”.

His response was “puffy or crunchy?”
(the thought had never occurred to me that there would be any other natural choice, but puffy) “Puffy”, was the cry.

“PUFFY!” the crowd proclaimed, “who eats puffy Cheetos?”

Incredulous! I was the minority in the puffy Cheeto world. I never knew. Crunchy cheetos had never been my bag. In fact I hardly knew that they existed, because the ORIGINAL snack was PUFFY – Crunchy Cheetos came along much later. I’d always liked the fact that you could take a puffy Cheeto and bite it in half, instantly the Cheeto would deflate into a mass of cheese product that stuck to the roof of your mouth, allowing you to suck on the salty cheese delight, until your next bite. Coating your orange fingers along with your orange teeth, the more that you ate the more cheesey your taste craving became. Ummmmm. I was not aware that everyone else didn’t feel the same way! I mean, jeeze, if you didn’t care for all that entails while devouring that cheesey goodness, then eat pretzels!

And so it began, my search for a like kind. Intrigued, I began to ask folks, “So, if you had to choose between Puffy Cheetos and Crunchy what would it be?” Some smart ass or dumb ass, small minded kind would say, “Neither, I like Funyuns”. AGH!
I’d have to re-phrase the question, so they would get the point, the real inner soul preference.
“ok, if you were out of chips, pretzels and Funyuns, and ONLY had two bowls of Cheetos, one puffy, one crunchy sitting out there before you, what would you choose?” (Patience is a virtue….for the brave, the strong, the crazy)
“I’d choose crunchyyyyyyy”, I’d heard more often than not! I was a Puffy Cheeto girl living in a Crunchy Cheeto world! Call Madonna, I have her song!
Well, it became a game to ask people as they came into the store. Couples all doe eyed, cooing lovingly at each other, when asked the question, one would say “Puffy”, and one would say “Crunchy”…and dissention would ensue. They suddenly couldn’t agree on anything, and then I would interject, “now, now, there is always Cheese Balls…the happy medium, not quite crunchy nor puffy”, and they would walk away appeased, but on the alert for other quirky differences in their “soulmate”.

And so the research went forth. I quizzed my kids, who grew up in a puffy Cheeto existence until they had worldly experiences outside the home. Puffy was the concensus in our household, naturally, because we were a tight little group. But otherwise, I was a minority.

I began a friendship with a customer, who also was my neighbor. My kids had grown up with his kids, and upon his entrance into the store one night, I asked the Great Cheeto Debate question. After he looked at me as though my hair might suddenly stand on end and turn orange, he didn’t hesitate to say, “Puffy”. No further explanation of the whole quiz needed. “Puffy?” and I knew we were friends. Friends who saw eye to eye, friends who had the same value system, who like similar things, who laughed at the same jokes. Friends.
12 years later, we began to live happily ever after. He’s still my best friend. We’ve expanded our snack horizon to include a wide (like my ass) variety of foods, and do not agree on Combo’s at All. It still amazes me when I ask someone to whom I feel a certain connection, what their Cheeto preference might be, and they say “Puffy”, I nod my head in agreement with the Cheese-o-meter. Oh, I hold nothing against the differences my “Crunchy” friends might have, I love the differences in the people that populate our planet, I just find a certain comfort in “Puffy Cheeto” friends. And now, the questions begin. Who are you? And are you a puffy or crunchy cheeto eater?