Lay's Potato Chips and Kenon

After moving to Enfield, CT when I was in sixth grade, we started receiving mail for people named Cartier. After a little investigation, we discovered that the mailman had confused us with a house up the street. They would sometimes get our mail too and we would occasionally have to make the trek up the hill of Clear Street to make the mail exchange. They were friendly neighbors, with younger kids, probably closer to my sisters' ages. Mr. Cartier drove a Lay's potato chip truck for a living and eventually, he enlisted my brother Kenon and I to help him out. When the chips were going on sale or if there was a new flavor, the company provided bright orange stickers to stick on each bag. The stickers would say something like "50 cents off this bag" or "Buy One Get One Free" or "New Flavor!" This needed to be done before the chips could be delivered. Mr. Cartier would offer my brother and I a case of chips if we would go through each box in the truck and sticker the bags. I think he would give us a few bucks for pocket change as well, but I can't remember.

I don't remember it being as easy as it sounds. Usually the promotions were in the summer, probably to take advantage of the summer parties and cookouts. The truck would be parked in the driveway and it would be pretty hot and humid. There was no ventilation in the truck once you got far enough back where you couldn't feel the breeze from the back. We, of course, would have to open each case and there would be two layers of bags. We would have to take the top layer out, sticker the bottom and then put the top layer back in. After only a few boxes, my brother and I would be sweating and wishing we had not taken the job. Eventually we learned that if we waited until later in the evening, we could handle the temperature and make better time stickering the chips.

One Sunday, we had worked about two hours stickering the chips and Kenon had already begun choosing which chips we would take home. I remember thinking how cool it was that we did not have to sticker the last case because that was the case we would be taking with us. I let my brother pick the flavors and honestly, back then, we didn't have much to choose from. There were not all of the fancy flavors they offer today. He always chose sour cream & onion and a few bags of barbecue that he would say was for Dad. I would insist on a bag of plain Lay's for me, that is still my favorite flavor of potato chip: Original. I know that is not living on the edge, but I often pick the classic, original flavor of any food as my favorite. There is a reason it is the original flavor and without the original, we would not have had the opportunity to expand on new flavors, right?

Kenon and I went home, just in time for the Michael Jackson "Bad" video premiere. I had been anticipating the premiere for a couple of weeks at that point and had heard that Martin Scorsese had directed the video. The video was over 15 minutes long and was supposed to live up to Thriller. Michael Jackson, of course was the king of video making and my brother and I were equally excited to see the video and hear the new song. We sat in the living room with my parents. Mom and Kenon each had a bag of the sour cream & onion chips. Dad had the barbecue flavor chips my brother reserved for him. I had my one bag of original flavor. Before the video came on, there were some interviews and by then, we were halfway through our bags of chips. After watching the video, there were some commentaries and everyone decided to give the video a thumbs up. The video was a gang in the city, maybe at a subway stop, and they would break into choreographed dance numbers in typical Jackson style. My brother and I thought it was very cool and we had the song in our heads even days later.

Months later when the MTV Video Awards were on, I thought that the video was a sure winner. Turns out that Janet Jackson had won for one of her videos instead of her brother, Michael. We were watching the awards with our Lay's potato chips, earned from stickering on Mr. Cartier's truck.