Right there in the junk food aisle of our little rural supermarket, I won the longest running squabble in the history of my marriage.
It went down somewhere between the Buffalo Ranch Doritos and the Chili Cheese Fritos, but exactly where is not critical, what is important is that I finally and decisively won the Blue Corn Snob Chips War.
It began like this.
A few years ago, my sister asked us to pick up chips for a family gathering and my wife unwittingly tossed an ordinary bag of tortilla chips into the grocery cart.
I informed her that ordinary were not worthy of my sister’s legendary guacamole dip. Only blue corn tortilla chips would do.
She did not take it well.
“I’m just a country girl…” she began, “and where I come from people don’t eat snob chips.”
Forgive me for stating the obvious but when my wife begins a sentence with “I’m just a country girl” what follows is not an expression of humility. For her “being country” is the most virtuous of all virtues while “being city” is the viciest of all vices.
You would think our years together would have narrowed that cultural chasm, especially after we moved to her little Minnesota town – but it only made matters worse.
She insists on plain old while I (too often in her opinion) tilt toward snobby – which makes for some awkward situations.
For example, I once made the mistake of serving a Guinness Stout to a neighbor. He spat it out.
“That,” he exclaimed, “tastes like the stuff I use to seal-coat my driveway.”
The next time he came over I served his favorite beer, one that comes in a 24 pack and requires tap water to thicken it up.
The same happens with coffee.
My rural guests complain that they can taste my coffee all the way to next week. They prefer it anemic, preferably with less caffeine than the FDA allows in baby formula.
So does that make me a snob?
My wife thinks so.
But who’s the snob here?
If someone likes blue corn chips, craft beer or strong coffee, who is to say that is wrong?
The world needs progress and fashions evolve– but yeah, some people take it too far. They change their politics and morals at the speed of TicToc.
The world sorely needs stability too. Someone has to anchor the culture, least we all drift away – but again some take it too far and haven’t changed their views since cars wore fins.
There is enough vice and virtue to go all the way around and being the last to adopt a fad is just as virtuous as being the first.
It is why I like being a Midwesterner. Ideas come to us from the coasts and by the time they get here, they are worn thin – so we can see right through the worst of them.
But things do get here eventually. Even things like blue corn tortilla chips which recently made an appearance on the shelves of our little rural supermarket – right there between the Buffalo Ranch Doritos and the Chili Cheese Fritos.
Almost Iowa 