Under 30 salutes pork rinds

The other day I was staring at The Post-Crescent's break room vending machine when something happened that made me question the fabric of truth and logic that supposedly holds our society together.

I saw a bag of pork rinds.

I closed my eyes, shook my head and looked again. Nope, still there. Baken-Ets brand, "Hot 'N Spicy" flavor, net weight 1 ounce. There it was smack dab in the middle of the other selections, between Rold Gold pretzels and Cool Ranch Doritos, just daring you to punch C-5 and sell your soul for 70 cents.

I couldn't believe it. This was a vending machine located hundreds of miles from where you normally see pork rinds, i.e. places where folks have uncles named Cooter and gun racks are issued at birth by the local municipality.

This had to be a mistake. Otherwise, what's next? Mince meat pie squares? Grits-flavored crackers? Larry the Cable Guy's "Git-R-Done" brownies?

A break room vending machine essentially is a perfect democracy. People buy what they want, and at the end of the day the guy who stocks the machine knows he needs more tropical Skittles and fewer beef-n-cheese sticks. If elections were as fair as the average vending machine, everybody would vote.

But even vending machines fail from time to time. That is the only credible explanation for why a small plastic bag of pork rinds stuck out like an obscene gesture among The P-C's bountiful food options. Well, maybe not the only explanation. There is another, darker possibility I'm not quite comfortable considering.

Do my co-workers like pork rinds?

It's possible (heck, likely) there's an underground cult of pork rind-lovers gathered somewhere in this building. They sneak in the break room when nobody is looking, punch up C-5 on the vending machine and quickly scamper away with processed pig remains before being discovered. They might be ashamed of themselves, but like drug addicts, vampires and Flavor Flav, they cannot help themselves.

How do I know this? (Here comes the Keyser Soze moment): I AM ONE OF THEM!

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