Chip aisle gets Weaver's blood boiling

With the exception of my tendency to be a worrywart, I consider myself pretty easy going and mellow.

But there's one place which just gets my blood boiling, without fail.

And that's the potato chip aisle of any local grocery store.

That's where one of the most heinous crimes against American consumerism is taking place: Have you seen how the potato chip companies are trying to put one over on the American people?

Of course you haven't. But you can certainly feel it.

Just take an average bag of nacho-flavored chips and feel to see how full it is. Don't be fooled by the large, overstuffed look of the bag. One doesn't start feeling the jagged edges of the chips in the bag until about a fifth of the way down, although don't go by that estimate - they covered this one day in elementary school and that was the one day I chose to daydream, and I've never had a firm handle on measurements ever since.

Even the see-through bags are getting into the act by going all the way up to decorative packaging, and not an inch more, but giving the impression of being filled all the way up to the top.

I don't mean to play the "Back in my day things were so much better" card, but I'm certain there were more chips in the bags when I was younger.

It's getting so one needs to buy the family size just to get an amount of chips we used to be able to count on getting from the regular bag of chips.

Would it really be so bad for the chip companies to produce bags of chips where you actually know you're getting chips. They don't have to be so full they're in danger of exploding, but I seriously doubt anyone is going to take the time to write an angry letter to the company:

"Dear Sir Chips-A-Lot, I received more chips in a bag of your jalapeno-and-sausage pizza-flavored variety than I was expecting, and I am deeply, nay, profoundly offended."

Sigh. Where did this "fewer chips for a higher price" mentality come from, and why does it seem to have gripped the nation in virtually every field?

What happened to the days when people took pride in their work instead of getting by with the bare minimum?

A great deal of people in our society, it seems, are devoted to trying to get away with the least amount of effort for the highest cost.

If I can't get away with it, no one else should be allowed to do it, either.

But seriously, it makes things just that much more disheartening for those of us who are trying to do their best and do go the extra mile in order to ensure quality, to have to go to the store and pay bigger costs for less food. And harder for those of us who do good work to rise above the slacker attitude.

I'm so mad, I'm thinking about resorting to healthier food options.

And believe me, in my household, that's pretty darn furious.