The fact that I bought the chips in the first place is a surprise. They were not on the grocery list, and I am a list-sticker-to-er. The list is all knowing, all seeing, all being. To go off-list is to desecrate the integrity of the list.

Also food is just not that interesting to me. This baffles my best girl friend who thinks cooking is a perfectly acceptable form of entertainment. This was marvelous in college. We were roommates, and I had home-cooked meals every night. Occasionally, when I was working late at the city paper, she would deliver said meals to me in the newsroom, sending my editor into fits of jealousy. Since she's no longer living down the hall, it's now up to me to cook these healthy, diverse meals each night for my new roommate, also called my husband. But frankly, if he weren't around to bear witness and shame me, I'd probably live exclusively on canned soup and raisin bran. I might heat the soup before I ate it. In the microwave. Maybe.

Not that I don't have favorite food items. I'm big on whip cream in a can and, for the protein, peanut butter straight out of the jar. It's not that I can't cook. I'm actually okay at it, which is obviously due exclusively to a lucky inheritance of my mother and grandmother's chef genes and not through any actual work or interest on my part. I'd just as soon scrub the toilet.

But potato chips don't require any cooking, and these called out to me. The packaging was simple. It was a plain red bag with black type. Not lipstick red. More like the color of ripe pomegranates. They should make more clothing this color. I'd buy it. The front said "spicy thai, ginger with attitude."

I like spicy. I like Thai. I went so far as to pick up and read this strictly off-list packaging. The ingredients were all things I could 1) pronounce and 2) liked, as long as I didn't have to cook them. Potatoes, honey, salt, garlic, jalapeno, ginger, onion, habanero, cayenne, lime. By then I was so intrigued that even if I didn't buy the chips, I'd think about the chips later, in the privacy of my own chip-free home. I'd wonder about the chips. I'd look to see if the chips were still there next week when I bought my on-list fat-free milk and zip-top baggies. Parts of my brain that should be working up new plot lines and retaining my multiplication tables would be taken over by the chip obsession.

And really why torture yourself?

I didn't even put the rest of the groceries away first. In my own defense, I did at least wait until I got home to rip open the bag, not that I would've had much choice anyway. Despite being made of actual paper instead of the de rigueur cellophane, it was unrippable. I have an easier time with duct tape.

One pair of kitchen shears later, I reached in and snatched a morsel of chippy goodness. I had become so enamored of the red bag, I'd expected the chips themselves to be red. They weren't. They were potato colored with some green flecks that, upon consideration, I believe to be bits of jalapeno. No matter. I shoved it in my mouth anyway.

My first thought was "pad thai!" I can't really explain this as there was nothing remotely peanuty nor noodle-like in the ingredients. Nor can I say that I detected much if any of the ginger so touted on the bag. Mostly it was just honey, lime and the good slow, building burn of habanero.

"Tasty," I thought and put them away. For three minutes. Then I got them back out again and ate them in back-hoe fashion until my husband complained that they smelled, and I was banished to the bedroom with my spiffy red bag.

Twenty minutes later, no doubt alarmed by the ceaseless crunching, he came in to investigate. "Are you going to eat that whole bag tonight?"

"No," I huffed. "I am not." And I didn't. I ate three-quarters. Then the habaneros gave me heartburn, and I had to stop.

I'm considering this a minor setback and have every intention of attacking the next bag with renewed vigor and determination. Also with milk. And maybe some Maalox.