Since I like you, I'll warn you about this stuff. It's Cheez-It Snack Mix and it's really, really addictive. Do yourself a favor and don't try it because you may never eat anything else the rest of your life.
I'm talking here about their Classic variety. The Cheez-It people make several different kinds of Snack Mix like their Double Cheese version or their Cheddar & Barbecue. I haven't tried any of these. I dare not for fear I'll like one of them even more than I like the Classic variety.
The Classic, which is sometimes labelled as such or sometimes just says Cheez-It Snack Mix, consists of the following: Two different sizes of pretzels, Cheez-It crackers, teensy non-cheese crackers which they call "bread slices," cheese-flavored rice balls, some kind of not-great Wheat Chex knock-off and various seasonings including garlic powder and Worcestershire Sauce. Even with mediocre Wheat Chex replicas, it makes for a wicked, impossible-to-resist concoction.
I don't know much about how heroin is trafficked in this world but I'm guessing that if you could somehow corner the market on Cheez-It Snack Mix, you could follow the same business model and annually make an amount somewhere between what Donald Trump claims to be worth and what he actually is worth. This would involve giving unsuspecting people their first hit for free and then making them pay, pay, pay for more as they desperately struggle to recapture the feeling of that first high.
In truth, someone is already doing this. Costco is doing this.
I had my first taste via a free sample handed to me by a lady there wearing a hairnet. Since it didn't seem to be cole slaw, I ate it and I was hooked. I had to have more.
I circled back and hoped she wouldn't notice I was helping myself to seconds and then thirds, fourths and eventually ninths. But she knew what I was doing and she knew she'd succeeded in her goal. She had me.
I had a monkey on my back. I don't mean that literally. There was no actual monkey on my back but if there had been, he would have been eating Cheez-It Snack Mix.
Facing the inevitable, I pushed my cart to the part of the store where Costco displays the stuff and discovered that they only carry it in three-pound bags. That's a lot of Snack Mix. I didn't buy one because I knew my only hope was to slowly wean myself off the junk with smaller and smaller portions. That's hard to do when you have three pounds of the stuff on the premises.
So I forced myself to leave Costco without any…though on my way to the register, I spotted above-ground wading pools and briefly wondered how many three-pound bags of Cheez-It Snack Mix it would take to fill one of them. En route to my home, I stopped at a Ralphs and bought a normal-sized box of it. It took about a week but I've managed to eat less and less of it each day to the point where my consumption is now limited and mostly voluntary…
…although since I had to go back to Costco for someone else, I did buy one three-pound bag. But I ate it at a semi-normal rate.
I'd like to think I have my addiction to Cheez-It Snack Mix under control but it has not been easy. I thought about it more than seemed sane, devoting way too much time to pondering why it includes two different sizes of pretzels instead of just more of one. I also fantasized about how much more delicious it would be if they replaced their counterfeit Wheat Chex with genuine Wheat Chex. Perhaps it's better for all of us that they don't.
You may have read articles about how well Costco treats its employees and how it pays them better than chains like Walmart and Target. Costco also has very reasonable prices and all that makes some wonder how they're able to do it; how they're able to show a profit. I think I have the answer. I think all of that stuff — the cheap office supplies and electronics and tires and half-ton tubs of margarine — are just a Loss Leader. I think they make their money by getting people hooked on Cheez-It Snack Mix.