Behind Every Bag of Chips…

So I was at Safeway early this morning right before going into work, and I walk by this big promotional display they had just erected (huh huh huh, erected, huh huh huh). Beside it stood about half a dozen important-looking men in suits. Walking by, I saw they wore name badges indicating they were from Frito-Lay, and that this big promotional, uh, whatever the hell it was carried a bunch of cardboard cutouts of that Chester the cheetah and other mascots of theirs. Cute.

And then a realization hit me.

The businesspeople. Think about it. You’re just chilling on a Sunday afternoon and you find a small bag of Fritos in your pantry. You sit on the couch and flip through channels and break into that bag and stuff the salty things into your mouth. But there’s so much more to it.

Behind that bag are zillions of identical bags in stores and pantries across the globe. Behind those bags are hundreds or thousands of rich, suited executives with six or seven figure incomes, who never see these bags but rather talk about them a lot and how they can sell zillions and zillions more of them. Behind those rich well-groomed business folks are well off yet somewhat neglected families, complete with unsatisfied spouses, and underappreciated children who are expected to conquer the world like at least one of their parents whom they never see except for the occasional break from the endless, pointless, superficial cesspool that is a rich executive’s business world when all they say to their children is how disappointed they are in them for what minor flaws they have. Behind these executives are the lesser paid employees, the middle management folks who make much less money but have the same crippled family structure they must grudgingly go home to every night, where they drown their sorrows in a case of beer, trying to ignore their nagging wives or husbands, telling their daughters to go away and to show them her report card or art project some other time, telling their sons they play too rough and loud, trying their damndest to prevent the tiny possibility that their children just might not grow up to live their same meaningless existence. Or the middle management folks without spouses or children who have to hear about this all the time, who just don’t understand the logic of those who do, only to be told that they would understand if they were in their situation. Behind them are the minimum wage temps and office clerks who can only afford a crappy studio apartment forty miles away that they must share with four other people. The people who must make the chips. The people who run the machines. The people who order the parts for the machines and whatnot. The people who sit behind desks under fluorescent lights all the live-long day, not entirely sure what exactly their role is in the company’s progress or goings-on or anything. The people who ship stuff to them. The people they must correspond with. The people who must clean these places. The people desperately hoping their jobs will not be outsourced.

Think about every job there is. Think about all the companies out there. Think about all the roles different people play. Think about all the pain and suffering, great and small, that accompanies. Think about all the time used to this end. Think about everything else involved of which I haven’t even scratched the surface here. Think about how every bit of this sits behind every cute mascot or commercial you see. Think about how when you leave work to go home for the night or weekend, you never truly leave but just slightly change your role in the huge machine for a moment.

Think about that when you bite into that chip.

No, I really don’t have a point in all this. But it sure ruins your snack break.

This has been Day 23 of the 100 Days of Summer, Round 6.