What You Don't Know Can Hurt You

 "Thanks for bringing home the death chips, dad."

I knew my son was addressing me, but I had no idea about what he was referring. So I asked him. "Son, what are you talking about? Death chips?"

"We're not supposed to be buying Frito Lay." My look did not reflect understanding. "Another guy died on their assembly line. We're supposed to be boycotting them."

This was the first I had heard of such a thing. Not the boycott. Or the idea of a boycott. I was unaware that working conditions at the Frito Lay plant in Topeka, Kansas were so horrible and a strike had been called after an employee had collapsed and died. Management had them move the body out of the way and shifted another person in to keep the line rolling. 

Death chips. 

So I can completely respect the reasoning. I'm a union guy who has been on strike, and I asked people to respect our picket line. Nobody died while teaching in our district and asked us to shove the corpse out of the way. I felt bad.

Death chips.

The tough part was, I had purchased that bag of Wavy fried potatoes because my son, like his father before him, was a brand name guy. I could have bought some locally sourced fried potato product but went to the big cardboard display with the expressed intent of getting us some brand name Wavy chips.

Death chips. 

I have got to start reading more of Al Gore's Internet.