I love potato chips.

I love potato chips with the love that only comes from the heart of a 52-year-old woman who is completely aware that potato chips are insanely bad for you.

I love potato chips with the love that only comes with the full awareness that on the back of the bag, in that little box that has the heading Nutritional Information it says:

Nutrition: You're kidding, right?
Fat: Grease R Us
Sodium: Think Dead Sea, baby, Dead Sea
Calories: read no further unless you want to become insanely depressed.

I know all this, and still I love potato chips.

From time to time I will break down and bring a bag of potato chips into the house. When I do this, I arrange for the spousal unit to hide them and to dole out tiny chip portions. This way I indulge my occasional cravings without having to adopt the All Caftan Wardrobe.

Well, this afternoon when I came back from the gym I was hit by a chip craving of ferocious dimensions. Really, the word "craving" does not begin to cover the depth and breadth of my need. I was in chip pillage mode, so I began to methodically Hunt For The Hidden Chips.

I knew he had put them somewhere downstairs because he always comes downstairs to get them. First I checked the standard hiding places: the kitchen cupboards. No chips. The cupboard above the fridge. No chips. The cupboards in the kitchen island. No chips. The cupboards by the woodstove. No chips.

My forehead was beginning to bead with sweat.

WHERE HAD HE HIDDEN THE FREAKIN' CHIPS?

Out to the porch I went. I checked in closets and cupboards out there. No chips.

Clearly he had been possessed by a stroke of sheer diabolical cunning.

I went into the bathroom. I looked in the cupboard under the tub--lots of dust bunnies but no chips. The bathroom cupboard proper. No chips.

My desperation was mounting. I opened the woodbox. No chips.

I scanned the whole downstairs. I had opened every conceivable hiding place and none of them contained the freakin' chips.

And Then I Saw Them.

He had hidden the chips in full view ABOVE the kitchen cupboards by the sink.

In Full View!

WHAT SORT OF EVIL GENIUS HAVE I MARRIED? HUH? HUH???

Somehow I managed to eat just enough chips to end the craving without going overboard. Maybe the fun of the hunt blunted the craving, who knows? Then I very, very carefully folded up the top of the bag exactly as he had folded it, replaced the clothes pin he had used to close it, and put the bag back in its former hiding place.

Let's just keep this our little secret, 'kay?

--Marn

There's no new inductee into the Bazonga Boosters Hall o' Fame, today no one decided to spend some of their hard-earned buckazoids supporting me as I run the Jog for the Jugs Oct. 5 in Montreal.

No one new can proudly sport the shoddily Photoshopped yet justly coveted red rectangle below. *Siiiiiggggghhhh*

P.P.S.- That iron woman, Karen is doing an unbelievable 60 MILE WALK FOR BREAST CANCER! If you don't want to sponsor me, perhaps you'd want to sponsor her. Yowza, that makes that 5K Jog for the Jugs seem embarrassingly short.

Mileage on the Marnometer: 415.8 miles (669 kilometers)

Goal for 2003: 500 miles - 804.5 kilometers