Ode to an egg sandwich and a bag of Doritos

It was not so long ago that I was a balding, chubby, dairy and potato chip eating/beer drinking/pass out from the sheer volume of carbs I consumed vegetarian. My general disposition could be summed up with the opening lines of Dostoevsky's Notes from Underground: “I am a chubby man, I am a balding man, I am a grumpy man, and my liver is definitely inflamed. Paraphrasing slightly. Over the past two months, I made some serious changes in my diet, and I actually do feel and look better. Still balding. Despite all these betterments, I still think an awful lot about beer and potato chips. This is an Ode to one of my favourite post binge-drinking meals: an egg sandwich and a bag of spicy Doritos.

  As I would make my home after a night of drunken singalong-ing from the west end to the east end of Toronto, or “The Far East” as I like to call it, I would usually stop at the 24 hour convenience store at the corner of Greenwood and Gerrard, a haven for insomniacs, drunks, the lonely, cab drivers, and/or some combination of the above. As you enter the store, the intense florescent lights are a sobering reminder that the party is over; it's time to replace some nutrients and rehydrate before the beer-induced coma sleep. The egg sandwich sits in a temperature-controlled display case, beckoning. The Doritos are found in the aisle with the other dry goods and have a considerably longer shelf life.

  A brief description of the egg sandwich, the traditional meal of white Canadians. It is made with untoasted white bread that is soft to the touch, indeed it is almost as soft as the egg filling. Eaten alone, the egg sandwich is unexciting, a senior's lunch if you will, but paired with a bag of Sweet Chili Heat Doritos and it's something altogether different. It is an amazing combination of flavours and textures, a bit like eating a very spicy, crunchy egg. There would be evenings when I simply could not wait until I reached my apartment and I would eat my meal on the walk home, my fiery Dorito-tongue soothed only by the mayonnaise from the sandwich and the cool night air. I felt ashamed, but fortunately, there was rarely anyone else around at that time so I could walk home without judgement.

 A few words about Doritos now: on the back of a bag, the nutritional information reads as follows: calories: 140, total fat: 12%, sodium 180 mg, protein: 2 grams, and various vitamins totaling 24%. These numbers are meaningless, the snack has no nutritional value. Like the egg sandwich, Doritos are actually not that enjoyable when eaten on their own. One tends to feel worse after each one, and after eating an entire family-sized bag in one sitting a person may become extremely depressed. It always best to combine the two foods, and never eat more than an individual-sized bag of Doritos with any meal.

These are just-just my opinions I ask you please do not accept any of these words as fact. Instead, I recommend that you get really drunk, take the night bus to the corner of Greenwood and Gerrard at around 3 am, buy yourself an egg sandwich and a bag of spicy Doritos, and judge for yourself.