Junk Food Junkie

Junk Food Junkie

I love food. My wife doesn’t really get how much I like being able to buy any kind of food I want and eat it anytime I want. She always tells me I should spend the money on clothes or knick-knacks. But that is where she gets her satisfaction, from being able to afford nice clothes and other things she wants. I just like to eat.

I’m not sure why I like buying food so much. It must be the consumer in me. I really don’t like to fix my own food and eat it. It would make a lot more sense to make my own food because then I could eat even more food.

But there is only so much food one person can eat, and I’m not sure why I like prepared food better. I think it must just be junk food that I like the best. When I was small, I loved to go to the convenience store and buy candy and pop. I finagled for every penny I could get; cashing pop bottles, selling off stuff I didn’t want any more to neighborhood kids, and even charging them to look through my telescope. My favorite part of the week was when I had enough to go buy something and eat it.

I could have saved up money and bought something to keep, but I just love to buy something and eat it. I think it makes me feel rich. If I can spend money on something like junk food, I must be rich.

There really are only three or four categories of junk food I really crave. I think I could eat potato chips every meal if my health would allow it. A real treat for me is a bag of Lay’s Potato Chips – the real ones, not the baked ones. The greasier my fingers get the better I feel. The saltier my mouth gets the more I like it. Once my face is puckered up from the salty greasiness, I really like to chase those lovely chips down with some kind of carbonated drink, especially Pepsi, or ideally Wild Cherry Pepsi. I used to drink the diet stuff, but now I’m back on full sugar dosage at every drink. It really doesn’t seem to make a difference in my weight, and the great satisfaction that sugar rush gives me is really worth more than I pay. But don’t tell the companies.

I think there really is a plan behind the management of my junk food eating habits. I even read a book decades ago which predicted just this kind of corporate manipulation of my tastes. The title of the book I can’t even remember, but I do remember the pattern the book talked about. Get the customer to eat something salty, then something sugary, and then something salty again. Sounds like my daily routine, doesn’t it.

I really don’t believe there is a conspiracy out there to get me to each chips and drink pop, but I there is, it is certainly working. I don’t mind admitting I’m a willing participant, and I really don’t think I’ll be changing my snacking habits any time soon. But I have cut back and I think the real reason I like fast food and junk food is not just that it easy and available, but I think I use these tasty treats as a reward for myself.

These little rewards are a strange thing. They really don’t amount to much, but I have found if I do those things I know I need to do each day, and then reward myself with a little treat, I feel better. Then I want to do more of those things I know I need to do, and another little reward greases the wheel again. It’s an automatic feedback loop which has worked very well for me, and I don’t plan to change the way I get things done anytime soon.

The simple things in life seem to me to be some of the most satisfying. Seeing a sunrise or a sunset, accomplishing the little things that need to get done so the big things also get done, and rewarding that good behavior with a bag of chips might seem like a simplistic approach to life. But I like it and encourage you to do the same. Looking to the future, I can see a happy group of over-achievers eagerly munching junk food as the progress of the world is measured in chips and pop. It seems like a simple solution to encourage all of us to do that little bit more which makes all the difference in the world. We may be a bag of potato chips and a soft drink away from solving your most important problem. Long live junk food!!

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