Starvation Army

I have to do a little backtracking with this post. This actually occurred earlier in 1989, when I was still working at Phone Survey, Inc. and KSYY-FM. This was during the period that I was a standby employee with the radio station and didn't have a regular shift.

It was snowing one weekend in 1989. One of the other part-timers who lived in Ft. Collins called me and told me he wouldn't be able to drive to the station and asked if I could work his shift. I was hoping this would lead to me getting back to working at the station more regularly. (That didn't happen.) However, I was going to have to take the bus to get there. I had to call RTD to get the schedule, which the recording warned was way off because of the snow. I found out I could get to the station by only making one transfer and I could leave early enough to get there in plenty of time in the event that the buses weren't on schedule.

There was supposed to be a 20 minute wait between being dropped off by one bus and the arrival of the other. The first bus wound up being about 20 minutes late. I hoped that all the buses were running that late. We got to the intersection where I was supposed to make the transfer. I got out and started crossing the street to the other bus stop. While I was crossing the street, I saw the bus that I was supposed to transfer onto waiting at the stop light. I just barely made it!

I got to the station in plenty of time. The one thing I was aware of was that I was going to have to spend the night at the station because the buses didn't run after midnight. While I was working, I went into the production studio. There, I saw a small box of Cheese Wheat Thins. On the outside of the box, someone wrote with magic marker, "I love these things" and put a drawing of a skull and crossbones underneath.

After I worked my shift, I tried to sleep on one of the couches we had. I didn't fall asleep right away. I decided to go walking around the building. I went onto the first floor, where KHOW-AM was located. In the hallway, I found a large box that was filled with Cheese Wheat Thins. I decided I would grab about six boxes and save them to eat later.

I finally fell asleep and woke up in time for the first bus the next morning. I got home and put away the Wheat Thins. As it turned out, I was out of food at home and had no money to buy anything with until pay day, which was still a couple of days away. Those Wheat Thins were the only food I had in the apartment. (I had also maxed out my credit card at this point, so I REALLY had no money.)

If you never heard of Cheese Wheat Thins, there's a reason. THEY TASTED TERRIBLE! I now understood why that person marked up that one box like that. Unfortunately, I had to force myself to down those things over the next couple of days. I was so relieved when I got my paycheck and I was able to go out and get a pizza. My taste buds were saved!

I never saw Cheese Wheat Thins in the stores. They were probably just testing them out. (If radio DJs won't eat them when you give them away for free, you know you have a major FAIL on your hands!)

Since then, I've noticed that Wheat Thins do come in a variety of other flavors and they actually taste pretty good. These flavors include Chili Cheese, but not one that's just plain cheese. I guess their cooks finally figured out how to add flavor to them while removing the "yuck" ingredient.

Ever since then, I made sure I always had decent food around the house by stocking up on canned foods, like soup. I knew I never wanted to put myself through that again.