Picture this: Your favorite Tostitos chip, Hint of Lime, transformed into a bite-sized delectable delight, all the while maintaining it’s crisp limey-ness that we all know and love.
This was the vision I saw one day last December while eating some Hint of Lime chips. I thought how great it would be if I could just easily pop one into my mouth , as opposed to trying to stuff in the pointy triangle chip, resulting in numerous cuts and eventual canker sores.
For those of you that know me or follow me on Twitter (all 43 of you), the real ones, you would know that for the last five months I have been an advocate of the “Hint of Bite Size” chips — I came up with the name myself —so much to the point where I emailed Tostitos telling them my great idea. I figured it would be a way to make us both a little extra cash.
Where did I get the balls, the audacity, the idea to do that?
It all started when I was 12.
I was a heavy collector of Dum Dums Lollipop wrappers because I was in the wallet making business - that is, the candy wrapper wallet making business. I don’t remember how much I sold them for, but they were pretty high-end if you ask me. I made them with pockets on the inside for cards and everything. If you want one you’ll have to get on the month-long waiting list.
Anyways. I opened up a pop one day to find that it was missing a half. I was outraged. This. Would. Not. Stand.
I go on my family’s Dell desktop from the dinosaur age and look up the Dum Dums manufacturing company. I needed to file a complaint immediately.
I wrote a strongly worded email discussing the disappointment I endured and how this would be a huge setback to the business, Dum Dum Wallets. Clever name - I know.
Whenever the next time I checked my oh so busy email was, I discovered that I had received an email from a woman named DaWanda from Dum Dums. I couldn’t believe my eyes. Literally, this woman wrote me a novel. She was deeply sorry for the travesty I had gone through and wrote out the entire manufacturing process, explaining that sometimes, shi* happens.
She asked me for my address because she wanted to send me a bag of FREE lollipops to make up for it.
This of course sparked the idea that I would just send complaints to all the food companies I liked and accumulate a stock pile of free food - like extreme coupon-ing, but extreme scamming.
I will forever hate Apple, because due to the technological difficulties I encountered with my email on my laptop, all of my old emails got erased. Including the one from DaWanda from 2013. It would’ve been the perfect addition to this post.
I should send an email to them next and see if I can get a free computer.
So. Back to the chips. I emailed Tostitos in December and expected a response within a week, as DaWanda had done.
A week goes by. Nothing. A month. Nothing. Two months. Nothing. To this day. Nothing.
I then decide to Tweet Tostitos and try and get their attention that way. Nothing.
I was flabbergasted. I was just trying to make them more money than they already do, and they were being so rude and ignorant. I then checked their Twitter page and saw that a girl, much like myself, had Tweeted them recently inquiring about the SAME idea, only, apparently they were already an existing limited edition item. Good to know.
Realizing that it probably wasn’t going to become a reality for me, I gave up hope. Limited edition meant I would never know about it and it was never going to happen. It would remain a vision.
That vision remained a vision until today.
This morning, my friend who was familiar with the situation told me that her sister had purchased the limited edition chips at a Wegmans near Penn State. So what do I do?
I call up the local Wegmans to see if they have them in stock. They did. This was at noon. I had to wait until 8 p.m.
The anticipation all day was almost unbearable. The hype was too real.
We get to Wegmans and my heart starts racing. What if they aren’t here? What if someone got to them first?
I kid you not when I say I sprinted down the aisle and sighed in relief while jumping in excitement when I saw them on the lower shelf. I started clawing at the bags, taking all of them off the shelf. All six of them. Six? And it was fully stocked? People…come on.
I walked around the store with them in my arms, like a mother and her newborn baby. I couldn’t believe that the day had finally come.
I couldn’t wait to taste them.
Back in my dorm I opened up a bag and inspected the chip. It was definitely bite sized, but it looked less hint of limey. I was skeptical.
For good reason.
It is not nearly as limey enough. Being underwhelmed is an understatement.
13 dollars later, six bags and a whole lot of unnecessary angst later, and we have a retired wallet maker with a disappointing vision turned into reality.
Will any of this stop me? No. Have I already gone through 3/4 of a bag? Yes. And I have plenty more bags to go.
Oh hold on. I just had a new vision. I got it.
Bite-sized Doritos.
Looks like I have an email to write…
