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This is the machine that puts the sour cream & snonion flavor on the chips. Each of our flavors has its own production schedule and its own flavor management. We don’t add the flavoring to the regular chips, we add them to the base chips. The flavorings are all unique, but the base chips are exactly the same for every flavor in the production line. The only exception we’ve ever had for that was with our Pineapple & Shrimp flavor. The best flavoring variant that we had for that one had an odd ability to absorb humidity from the air, which wasn’t a problem for our application process, but as the water evaporated again from our pre-packaging bake, the flavoring tended to clump to outside the tolerance of our product line. We found that we were able to cook the chips about 8% longer at a slightly lower cook temperature, which solved that problem. But that flavor was always a headache, mainly because we couldn’t use base chips to make them. Integrating that chip in the assembly process was always extra work, but management wanted to keep that flavor on the shelves until after Neighbor Day because it had become something of a flagship for the brand. So we just kind of muddled through. But then when the shortages finally came after the paper-cut scare, we had no choice but to eliminate it. We’ve had more complaint mail about that decision than any other in the history of Chipgasm. And it wasn’t an easy decision because our pilot operation manual requires that we place the customers’ needs ahead of our direct internal profitability within the magin of operational safety. But we had no choice once the rations began, there was no way for us to meet our quota for the core-four chips of regular, barbecue, sour cream & snonions and the fourth, which our floating flavor. That’s the one we typically use for nutritional delivery. We don’t currently have a way to incorporate the nutritional delivery into the regular, barbecue of sour cream & snonions because it changes the taste, and our pilot operation manual won’t let us change more than 75% of the product line if the complain letters exceed 12% over standard response. The floating flavor is essentially designed to accept the nutritional or pharmaceutical delivery, so we have a lot of latitude with what we use. In my opinion as a taster, the floating flavors will never equal the taste experience of the other core-four flavors. Part of the work we do on the core-four is managing the constantly changing components of the ingredients to maintain the taste experience. People don’t realize how difficult it is to maintain the flavor profile when every component we buy is subject to the same rations as we are. I might have to buy my cheese powder from Mexico on Tuesday and from Madagascar on Thursday. The rations might be able to supply me with our prime maltodextrin this week, and a sub-prime maltodextrin next week. A lot of the ingredients that you see on the label are mainly to allow some flexibility in the surface moisture, flavor retention, packing variances, and everything else that will change the flavor of that chip.

I’ll know about a new directive from High Coast Brands when suddenly all of my prime suppliers are available. They seem to pull some strings for me when they introduce a new nutritional or pharma, because it gives me more worker hours to focus on the getting the floating flavor out the door with the new additive. Generally, I don’t know what in the bulk additives. The entire month’s supply of additives come in a single envelope, it’s about as much micronized powder as you would fit in about five of those little packs of sugar. Figure about three grams of sugar in each, so about fifteen grams total micronized power. It’s hard to imagine that only fifteen grams is enough to supply a quarter of the country’s population for a month, but that’s the seed envelope. We cut that power with mostly cornstarch, then we add the stabilizers and matrix lock ingredients so the micronized powder doesn’t bind too much or create secondary structures. But that original fifteen grams, that’s the actual additive. So figure our territory is say ninety million people, and our current penetration is one-third, or thirty million people customers. Our average adjusted delivery is nine chips per customer per day. Take that fifteen grams, convert to kilograms, divide that by our thirty million customers, you get five hundred times ten to the negative twelfth kilograms per customer per month. Then divide by thirty, and then by nine chips, and you get about two times ten to the negative twelfth kilograms of micronized power per chip. That comes to about two trillion molecules of the additives per chip. That’s far more than is actually needed to produce the clinical result, but when it’s broken down like this, it’s easy to see why they only need to send us such a tiny amount. The envelope is normal, the micronized powder has tracers in it that are keyed to the production facility. So when I get the envelope in the mail, I shake up the internal packet and feed a sample to the sensor. It reads the tracer mark, and then I call up High Coast Brands and read the mark over the phone, letter by letter to the agent there. If it matches, then the machine gets the unlock signal, and then that month’s powder is authorized into the manufacturing. The tracers will continue to check for contaminants through the manufacturing process. As far as I know, this method cannot be tampered. But I’ve had a few young criminals who we employ to find security holes, and they’ve found two different ways to circumvent the security. So it’s possible. Hopefully the concentrations are low enough that this isn’t an attractive option, and the Lentilevers will make trouble for someone else other than me. And while I don’t know what’s inside of each powder shipment, I can get a rough idea by looking at the mass spec analysis, which has to be supervised by a human under both our rules and the national rules. It’s usually a cocktail of inoculations, some biometric tracers, some test pharmaceuticals and the mass psychology patches. The biometric tracers are easy to recognize, because they spike at the same mass number each time, they haven’t really started to hide the signature on those because there has been no tampering. The inoculations are easy to recognize after a few years because I’ll see those spikes show up before flu and tuberculosis season. The test pharmaceuticals are easy to find because they always load them into the statutory limit of no more than twenty percent mass. The psychology patches are whatever is left over.

I hope that answers your question. If you want to avoid the additives, purchase the flavors from the core-four, but not the floating flavor. If total purchase of the additive flavor falls below seventy-eight percent though, then we will have to start adding it to the other three flavors. If you and your friends don’t want to be dosed, then just buy a lot of the floating flavor and eat them when you don’t need a clear head.

You see son, look at that white vertical rectangular at Mile 6, and then look at your length counter and tell me how far it is to the next sign that reduces the speed again.

“Mark fifteen, counter tach open.”

Yeah. Now you know. So I’ll ask you son, and I don’t want you to say the answer, but just think it, here’s the question … what was the approximate percentage of angry letters received by Lady Senator Sanchez versus letters of praise for Lady Senator Sanchez that were directly correlated to this sign change, with correlation to within 5% of error management standard deviation?

“Mark sixteen, counter tach choked.”

Keep an eye on your Gaussian Shields son, if you exceed the orthogonal to your velocity vector of the mean free path in this medium of one molecule per cubic centimeter, the efficiency of your shield will exponentially decrease.

“Mark sixteen, counter tach open.”

The ratio was 1.02. That was the most evenly distributed ratio we have ever seen since Lady Senator Sanchez’s term opened. I don’t know what tells you, but it tells me that probably have some 70% more taxpayers on the happy side than on the mad side, because the typical response of happy taxpayers in letter-writing mode is considerably lower than angry mode writers. Happiness is far less likely to spur a taxpayers to actually put pencil to paper and fold it into the envelope that we provide, and put a stamp on it, and drop it into the mailbox.

“Mark seventeen, counter tach quarter-choke, Gaussian Shield at ninety six percent efficiency.”

My point in telling all of this to you son, is that you need to understand the rhyme and the reason to why we put these road safety signs where we put them. We have a legal obligation to optimize the efficiency curve to the safety curve. And ultimately, the people who die on this road have given their lives to optimize transportation efficiency, while the people who sit in traffic on this road while their dinner gets cold have given a tiny bit of their happiness to optimize the number of people who remain alive on this road. Every sign with every speed is placed on this road to optimize those curves relative to each other.

“You can’t optimize an inverse relation sir!”

WHAT’S YOUR FUCKING MARK RECRUIT!

“Sorry sir, Mark senventeen, counter tach choke open. Gaussian shield holding”

You can’t fuck up like son. I don’t care if I just told you the secret password to your wife’s titties, you do not think of any thought but what is on that accelerator helm. And yes, I told you to think about things, you think about them, but when you let them approach the vicinity of your voice, you then remove the ability of your trainer to claim plausible deniability. I talk, the rest of us will talk. You don’t listen, you don’t respond. You think, you modulate, you interface with that accelerator.

“Mark eighteen, counter tach choke open.”

We optimize an inverse relation because we have no choice but to optimize an inverse relation. And at the end of the day, it works for the same reason the Kronecker Delta works, and the way renormalization works … because Mother Nature sometimes takes a steaming shit all over Math. And she gets Math’s dick in a vice, and she says to Math “I don’t give a fuck where you been, where you going, you’re going sit your ass on that couch and watch a goddamn Netflix with my fine ass, and I’m going to plop my fat arm over your chest and you’re going to put up with it, motherfucker.”

“Mark eighteen counter tach open … hold please.”

“Mark eighteen counter tach open … hold please.”

“Mark eighteen counter tach half-choke, Gaussian Shield at ninety five percent efficiency, drop in efficiency correlates to increase in ground state density with modulation on relative uncertainty to minus zero zero zero one, repeat, zero zero one.”

We optimize the inverse relationship of transport efficiency and safety because we have no choice but to do so, and the correlation factor changes depending on the economic necessities. If we need more money and few lives, we move the correlation to the left, if we need more lives and less money, we move the correlation to the right.

“Mark eighteen, counter tach open. Gaussian shield holding, ground state density holding on relative uncertainty to minus zero zero zero one.”

So Lady Senator Sanchez gets these letters, half of them say “Why did you put in that dumb ass sign that kills the flow on that road?” The other half say “Thank you for finally making that road safe, I’ve lost a loved one on that road, and the speed was too high.” That told us that there were a lot more people happy with reduction in speed than unhappy about it, and perhaps we had the speed on that road too high to begin with.

“Mark nineteen, counter tach half choke.”

I file my review on that, and the next thing I see we have a rule change to decrease the mean distance for velocity changes between speed limit signs. And it was a huge difference too, something like 15% decrease. That means the road is sped up because of our legal obligation to optimize the transport efficiency on the road. I know what happened … my review told the actuaries that our curve to optimize the number of people who stay alive after driving this road was less than optimal, and the speed was too low.”

“Mark nineteen, counter tach open.”

So, yeah, you can’t optimize an inverse relation, it’s always going to force me to rob Peter to pay Paul.

…

…

Shit.

“Mark twenty, counter tach closed.”

Son, have you ever tried chicken-on-a-stick? For coming from a gas station, I don’t care what you tell me, that’s some high quality food. It’s chicken, and it’s on a stick. And you can smell the fueling depot.

“Mark twenty, counter tach closed. Inlet shield funnel off, accelerator off.”

Good job you fucking ass-wipe.

“Thanks man. I nearly shit my pants when I saw the ground state uncertainty fluctuate like that, I’ve heard about that happening, it was my first time I’ve seen it.”

You’ll see it happen, not so much near here. Supposedly it’s just some aneutronic reaction nearby, it just pumped a lot of energy into the ground state, and the Planck time couldn’t buffer it, so the uncertainty has to absorb the extra energy, it’s the only thing that can buffer it, just means now you have more uncertainty in the position, but that’s a huge asymmetry, you can’t really get a handle on how big that is just by looking at the gauge, you have to get a notepad and a pencil to really see it.

“I’m out. That thing with the secret password to my wife’s titties, I nearly pissed myself when you said that.”

By the way, you gave me your pay today, thank you.

“Wait, huh? I fucked it up?”

On that Uncertainty deviation, you did the repeat at zero zero one. The gauge was zero zero zero one. The engine room fed back at zero zero zero one though, I made sure of it.

“Holy shit.”

Yeah. Don’t take it hard, you’re a human, and now you gave me your day’s pay. Next time you’ll focus better and be less human.

Hey Raheem, what it is Brohemian?!

Hey, what’s up brother dude?

So uh, are we still on for that terrorism that we had planned for next Tuesday after the India-Australia cricket match?

Hell yeah Dudenheimer! We’ve been planning this terrorism for years, you think I would cancel on you, bro?

Right, yeah … it’s just that the Americans killed General Soleimani, and I gotta, say, I’m kinda bummed, my heart just isn’t in this whole terrorism thing anymore. You uh, know what I mean man?

Well … I mean, yeah Duderoni and Cheese, I didn’t want to say anything, but yeah, I’ve been kind of bummed about that. It’s just so hard to go do terrorism when I’m all bummed over Solly. I know a lot of other terrorists get into the whole “martyr for the cause thing” but I gotta say, it’s just never been my bag, you know? I was more into just like chilling with my man Solly, just kind of being a global menace, you know, like Bushwick Bill, right?

Bushwick Bill from the Geto Boys! And Raheem! Were you named after him dude?

I was named after my mom’s great uncle Raheem, he paid for her nursing school, so she named me after him.

Anyway, you okay if we just shitcan the whole terrorism thing? I was thinking that after the India-Australia match, we could just hang with the fellas, maybe play some Madden NFL on the X-Box? Does your sister still make that German potato salad? I could eat a gallon of that stuff.

Yeah, the last time you did eat a gallon of that stuff and within an hour your farts were like Improvised Explosive Devices. It smelled like a polecat crawled up inside you and died.

Ha! I guess I can always find a new line of work now that this whole terrorism line of has shit the bed, huh?

What do you mean?

I’ll eat shit-tons of your sister’s potato salad and then fumigate houses for termites!

Ha, it’s funny being terrorists that some asshole in Davenport, Iowa invented on his computer, huh bro?

Hey man, I’m just doing my part to help keep someone from having to make an exit plan.

Yeah! Exit plans! Those are for pussies, right Bro?

That’s what I like about NYC … the peculiarities of the local economy there prevent much change from happening to the facades of those buildings, and much change from happening to the human contents of those buildings. A gentleman could visit some nondescript street on the Upper East Side somewhere, say above an hospital supply vendor, or down the street from a Yank-your-tooth fucking dentist, say around the corner of some church, say down the street of yet another Greek diners that changes ownership more often than it changes its menu, but still makes the famous Breath Mint Julep, named by none other than Rick Yukon when we was dumped there by the King’s County Sheriff, as a favor instead of leaving him at a processing station that the NYC Sheriff has to share with the NYC Police, because in NYC, even the fucking sheriff will say “Howdy” to you when you say “Howdy Sheriff.” And Rick Yukon got dropped at the door of that Greek Diner on Tuesday at 3:16 pm, a few school kids from PS-whatever-number-that-was-next-the-firestation walked by and asked if he was okay, because Hippie Parents taught their kids back then to be respectful of homeless political prisoners. He swept the dirt off his standard-issue Brooks Brothers suit but still looked like one of those old timey Irish miners in Colorado who used to wear their best suits to work in the mines. One can only assume that they wore them because those were the clothings they bought with them, back when shipping clothing out to the remote mountain shitholes like Colorado was expensive enough that only millionaire mountaineers like Tabor and Greeley and those guys and their families were buying fancy Eastern clothing. The rest of em went into the mines in their best clothing because that was all they brought, every last one of them. Before they leave, Mick MacLefkowitz is looking at all the shit in his closet, and he asks his wife “Oy ya babe, what’ll I bring with me to our new lives now that we’re about to be millionaires out in the silver fields of Colorado?” “Millionaires, you fat lazy bastard? Who told you that?” “Fuck you, I read it in the one of Horace Greeley’s newspapers. Millionaires!” So then the poor schmuck is out there, smartest guy in the bar back home, but there, he just stuck to digging trenches, and when the silver runs out, he’s still in that hole digging coal, organizing a union, a bunch of years later the same photographer from the Rocky Mountain News is in front of the same miner that once wore his tattered suit in front of that silver mine, from his old life because that was his penance for believing in fairy tales and make-believe and happy endings and he ended up a low-level employee with a life deemed disposable by his employer. And now he’s standing in front of that coal mine, and his employer wants to see him dead, because he organized a union and he took bread out of his children’s mouth. (Why in the hell should I be responsible for those lazy bastards?) The same photographer took a photo of the same miner, only this time with better gear, and this time he was dressed like a miner, only he kept his clothing clean somehow, even when he went in the mine. That was his job. He needed to appear to those miners that he could jump into any executive’s chair in that boardroom at the Brown Palace, any time he pleased, but he chose not to, because he has allegiance to the people from whom he came.

Yeah, he could have taken the board job, they all but offered it to him just so that the union could bring in a leader with all the charisma of hardtack and all the abilities of a plate of snails. But he was a dangerous man, because Scots teach their childen a bit differently than everyone else in the Holy Highlands. His dad taught him to never peach on a fellow, and his mom taught him to build an empire out of matchsticks and hairpins. They needed a new guy, a less effective guy because they saw the end of mining on the wall now that someone figured out how to make money pumping it out of the ground instead of having to dig it out of the ground. So yeah, they organized what happened to him and his brothers, and then they did it again a lifetime later because who the hell is going to remember a bunch of striking Colorado miners who get shot full of holes? But before there were holes in his work clothing, and before he stood before the photographer the second time, there was that first time, in his best clothing, covered in dirt, standing in front of that silver mine with a shit-eating grin on his face that you can see even with the long exposure times. He had a little money to at least buy some food for his children, he actually enjoyed picking away at the rocks, following the seam. If he worked hard maybe the mine owners would give him a promotion and he would become a millionaire after all and make his beautiful wife proud, and make his kids proud, and make his old man proud, and his mom proud. That dirty face, with the most elegant filthy clothing that photography has ever known, that was the image of Rick Yukon as he stood up from that courtesy ride from the Kings County Sheriff. He wanted a Mint Julep and he was damned well going to get it. Then the lovely Canadian employee of the Greek Diner Overlords said “we have the bourbon, we have some sugar packets, we have crushed ice, but we don’t have any mint here.”

“No mint?” Damnit, he was going to have a Mint Julip. And that afternoon was when Rick Yukon became legend, when he ground up a few breath mints from the counter tray with the edge of a Susan B. Anthony Dollar, lined it up like a few lines of blow on the hood of a 1969 Alfa Montreal, then sliced it, diced it, slid it, and lid it until it was the consistency of Peruvian Powderhorn. He brushed it all onto the back of a business card that was sitting on the counter from some guy at Datek Online Brokerage who probably would have really identified with Mick MacLefkowitz. Ricky handed her the card, said “use this”, which she did, and that was the very first Breath Mint Julip. Invented by Rick Yukon after being detained for questioning for that whole thing with the pre-production Alfa Montreal snafu, but they needed to get him out of harm’s way for a few days, so whatever works with Ukon.

A gentleman can stroll around a place like that near the diner and the hospital supply, down the street from the dentist, and year to year, the only thing that really ever changes are the dates on the tops of the newspapers. There are people who like their change to be well-controlled and predictable.