I Have A Sickness: A Doritos Sickness

by Obsessed Doritos Guy

From time to time, we offer free editorial space to common folk with something to say. Today, the subject of a documentary which appeared during last night’s Super Bowl discusses his strange compulsion.

I hear the hatred. I am aware of the mockery and the fear. How could it be otherwise? I’ve known it all my life. People point at me on the street in equal parts pity and disgust. Mothers will cross dangerous intersections, children in tow, in hopes of avoiding me. My employment history is an entirely predictable picture of vicissitude; I am hired, I spend a couple of weeks on the job, and then HR finds some pretense with which to effect my dismissal. I am the man who is addicted to Doritos cheese. My existence is a nacho-flavored nightmare from which I am unable to awake.

Wait, don’t go! Please hear me out! I so rarely have the opportunity to share my tragic tale. I was once like you, happy and well-adjusted. I won two straight batting titles in Little League. My friends were always vying for my favor, hoping to spend time in my company and competing with each other to see who could entice me to a sleepover with promises of the newest videogames or unscrambled naked movies. To have seen me at ten was to have seen a boy who seemed able to take on the world; a future business success who spent time counseling troubled youth on the weekends, active in his church, perhaps considering a run for elective office at the urging of important local civic boosters. It was all there for the taking.

It’s a very different story today, I’m sure you’d agree. How could you not? I see you there, with your accusing eyes. I know you’re looking at the door and wondering how to make your exit. I wish I could say that it doesn’t hurt anymore, but it never stops hurting. I blame those cursed chips, with their intoxicating orange glow and those irresistible enzymes, all made perfection with just the right amount of sodium diacetate to pleasure the tongue and send one into an ungovernable frenzy of orgiastic cheese-glee.

But of course I’ve tried therapy. When I think of the hours my own poor mother spent shuttling me from specialist to specialist, hoping against hope that we had finally broken the cruel grip of my malevolent dairy-based mistress, only to find me holed up in the basement licking a bag of Cool Ranch while my free hand attended to my baser needs, the agony is almost unendurable. The nights she cried alone in her room, wondering what would become of me once she was gone… have you no heart? Does it not hurt you as well? That poor woman, to have given birth to a bright and healthy son only to see him transform into some incomprehensible monster… it was a prison sentence that haunted her until the end of her days.

Look at me, my slack, pallid face all unspeakable desire and Blazin’ Buffalo & Ranch residue. I know that there’s no place for me in society. I wander from town to town, taking whatever work I can to help subsidize my depraved dependency. It always ends the same way; no matter how hard I try to control my urges, eventually someone cracks open a bag of Cheesy Enchilada and Sour Cream and the demon awakes. “Go,” he commands. “Lick. Inhale.” I cannot but obey. I crave, and once the craving starts there is nothing to do but suckle cheese-spackled fingers or remove an untidy colleague’s trousers to satiate my sickness. And then it’s off to another town, where no one knows of my terrible trial. (I often wonder if I am following the same route as my peripatetic father, who went out on my 11th birthday to “pick up some chips for the party,” never to return, but I did not ever hear from him again after that day.) Each new city seems like it will be different, but I always wind up back on the road, tears in my eyes and Last Call Jalapeno Poppers smeared on my lips.

I don’t ask for your understanding, or even your pity. This is my burden to bear alone. But please, at least know that I was not always this miserable wretch you see here before you. Something terrible happened to me, and I am now unfit for even the most basic social courtesies. At the very least, please find somewhere in your heart to acknowledge the human I used to be. Also, hand over what’s left of that bag of Pizza Ravers and Ranch. I don’t want to have to go into your colon to get it, but, of course, I will. God have mercy on my soul.

Obsessed Doritos Guy urges you not to go down the same road he has. His interests include eating Doritos, thinking about eating Doritos, planning on how to procure Doritos, and steampunk.