Ben inherited his love of chips from his father. They both prefer corn chips over potato chips, but Ben, in particular, will take his chips any way he can get them.
When he was about 5 or 6, Ben responded to our parental chip control by becoming more wily about their acquisition. We thought we were ahead of the game, hiding the Pringles so high on a shelf in the pantry that he couldn’t possibly reach it. In the mornings, before school, Ben started encouraging his father to go upstairs and take a shower, which should have been the first clue. Likely due to inadequate coffee consumption by 6:30, it took Phil at least a week and many Pringles to wise up. After dispatching dad upstairs and waiting to hear water running, Ben had been dragging out the step ladder, making his ascent to the top shelf, removing the lid from the Pringles canister, eating several dozen, replacing the lid, brushing the crumbs off his shirt, climbing down, and replacing the step ladder. Nothing appeared amiss when Phil would come back downstairs after showering and dressing for the day. Ben’s only tactical error eventually brought him down. He had not accounted for the telltale pungent traces of sour cream and onion flavor on his breath. Phil smelled it on him, and he was busted.
In the years since, Ben has developed, if not self-control, at least an adherence to the rules. He knows he is not to exceed one half-ounce bag a day for personal use when he comes home from school.
In more recent years, for one of his big birthday bashes, we asked people to refrain from bringing gifts. Phil, knowing some people are physically unable to come to a birthday party and not bring a gift, said that if they wanted to bring a bag of chips, that would be fine.
Well, what ensued defies description. There were chips everywhere! Barb even wrapped a carton of chips in foil, adding Pringle container arms, until she had an enormous chip robot for the birthday boy! Amazing! I believe the final count was 104 bags of chips. I used them to make a garland of chips that festooned our sun room for months. Ben would have been happy to accelerate his consumption rate, but we stuck to the small bag a day program.
This week’s Ben’s Day Wednesday meal was fish tacos with homemade tortillas, potato pinto bean hash, and of course… chips and salsa! Ben wanted “crispy” fish, so we went with fish sticks. I know this is not going to win any awards for authenticity, but it gave us time to focus on making the rest of the meal!
Looks good, Ben!!!