199 words about Utz potato chips
My grocery store keeps them in the front, in view of the end of the cleaning supply aisle. The medium-small bags, not the family size. I don’t have a family, but I do have a faint desire to live. They are perfect objects, the inverted yokes of color on bags pleasantly crinkly, the Utz girl with the gumball-shaped head. There are few things I enjoy that don’t come back to hurt me. One dollar and fifty-nine cents’ worth of Cheddar & Sour Cream or Carolina Style Barbeque is one of them. Aging is a process of paring away the overconsumption of your youth. Not because you can’t or no longer should indulge, but because you’ve realized the world’s abundance is a lie. There is no more in more. You’re stuck with yourself and the meager tools you use to get by. You have to find meaning in silence, because that’s all there’s ever been. This is difficult, but certain truths emerge. For instance, the feeling of toiling toward you are not sure what until late at the night, and remembering you have a medium-small bag of potato chips in the cabinet. This is real relief: minor and essential and cheap.