Chipping Toward Gomorrah

Dear Blog Readers,
I am writing this from a chip rehab. That's short for The Sierra Mesa Pines Chipaholic Rehabilitation Center. Location: Cannot be revealed. This lovely high-security prison is more or less a degreasing facility for poor slobs like me who can't overcome their addiction to potato chips. (They are called crisps in England and Ireland, right? Sounds leaner to me. I wonder if that gang called The Crips got their name, as well as their ferocity, because of potato chip addiction?) Oh, you know how it goes. I'll have just one. In my case, that would mean "just one 11 oz (311g) bag, thank you." Or just one hour at the potato chip trough. But the bag declares, "No Cholesterol. All Natural." I think I am going to be here longer than the typical 30 days. They keep wanting me to take something called The First Step, and all the while I keep wanting to take The First Chip. Little commandants walk around murmuring, "You need a meeting, not a chip." Maybe you can send me some chips of love over the Internet. Oh, you saw it coming all right. Yesterday, he's blogging about free will (or the lack of it). Today, he's crying the blues. Blues over chips. Blue-chip blues. (Excuse me, the rabid wordplay must be a side-effect of the detoxification process.) They've intentionally left some reading material in my little monastic room. One book had writings of the Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard with the book's spine splayed open like Britney Spears or Lindsay Lohan getting out of an SUV, with this passage highlighted by felt-tip neon marking pen: "Ah, one speaks of so many various things which a man may love most dearly: a woman, his child, his father, his mother, his fatherland, his art, his science: but what every individual loves most, more than his only child, the child of promise, more than his only beloved on earth and in heaven--is his own will." Some wise guy added "potato chip" to the list of loves posted by Kierkegaard. Hahahaha. Very funny. Salty humor. The (potato) eyes have it. No skins off my back. Then the smart-alecks who run this chip-free resort left a Zen Calendar in my cell with its convenient little January 8 "scripture" that blares with a quote from Henry Miller: "I know what the great cure is: it is to give up, to relinquish, to surrender, so that our little hearts may beat in unison with the great heart of the world." And some smart-ass scribbled by hand: "while your little heart still beats, Mr. Chipaholic" -- accompanied by one of those saccharine smiley faces (it's a good thing sweets aren't my addiction). (Henry Miller? Whew. I thought he was addicted to something else; and it wasn't pussywillows.) I was going to write a haiku about potato chips, but it only increased my carbohydrate-laced craving. Some lecturer this morning told us we have a thinking disease, not an eating problem. I think not, Herr Rehabmeister. Anyway, I say, "A chip, a chip, my queendom* for a chip."
Yours,
Pawlie Kokonuts

*Since so many of my readers are women (or pretend to be), I thought I'd throw that in there, for sympathy. I ain't getting any (sympathy, that is) in this chip rehab. No sirree, baby.