cheetos and the second coming

My friend Richie from up the street was there when it happened. I was glad I was not alone when the latest Cheetos news miraculously appeared on the big TV screen in my living room. I say “miraculously” because it was an amazing story, one worthy of the Almighty. In fact, it was all about the Lord. The news was so astounding that Richie stopped drinking his beer for a whole minute and just stared at the screen, his eyes big and his mouth wide open.

What it was was Jesus, on a Cheeto. But not just on a Cheeto. It was Jesus on a cross on a Cheeto. In the world of snack food it doesn’t get any better than this.

The woman who found Jesus on the Cheeto is named Kelly Ramey. She lives in High Ridge, Missouri (the “show me” state, of course), and she’s decided to keep the miraculous Cheeto, not sell it on eBay. If you want to see Kelly, and the famous Cheeto, they are both on YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NgFchkUFzqg).

“Oh my God,” Richie said, once he found his voice.

“Exactly,” I said, as I pressed reverse on the remote and, through the modern miracle of the DVR, found the close-up of the holy Cheeto and pressed pause. “You know what this means, don’t you?”

Richie took a long pull on his bottle of Budweiser and finally said, “When she’s ready to sell it she’ll make a bundle?”

“No, it’s not about the money. She said she’s keeping it anyway. I admire that choice. But you know, Richie, what we’re looking at is bigger than any snack. This may be ... the Second Coming.”

Richie started to laugh, then he suddenly stopped and looked at me like I was crazy. “No way, man. On a Cheeto? Jesus isn’t coming back that way. When he returns he’s coming in glory. Everybody knows that.”

I sat back on the couch, put my hands behind my head and my feet up, and waited with great anticipation for Richie’s newest rant. I didn’t have long to wait. Richie had swallowed the bait.

“Hey,” Richie said, pointing his Bud bottle at me, his voice louder now, “you go to church on Sunday, you know better than to expect Jesus to appear that way. On a Cheeto, man? On a little cheesy thing that lady might just as well have eaten in one bite? And what do you think happened? Do you think God and Jesus were up in heaven ... and God was like Morgan Freeman, with the great God voice, right? ... and God says it’s time to return to earth, and Jesus is cool with that until God tells him that this time he will be arriving on earth in a Cheeto bag? ... and God would get to stay up in heaven with the angels and the harps and stuff? ... and maybe Jesus would complain about having to do all the risky stuff on earth? ... is that what you think?”

Richie stopped pointing the bottle at me and drank from it. Then he sighed. “Sorry, man, I didn’t mean to yell at you, but jeez ... I mean, for cripes sake, man, there’s just no way.”

“What if it’s not the Second Coming,” I said, “what if it’s just a sign? You saw how happy the folks in that town were when they saw the Cheeto. It was bringing joy into their lives.”

“A sign? Well yeah, I guess. Like those signs in the Bible. I don’t remember them all. Wasn’t there a burning bush in there somewhere? And the bright star when Jesus was born? That was a sign. And didn’t Jesus turn water into wine at that wedding party?”

“That last one was more of a miracle than a sign,” I said.

“But it was a party,” Richie said. “And there must have been food to go with the wine. Not Cheetos, of course. But something like that. Maybe an old Jewish snack. Maybe like a falafel. Maybe a Jewish taco.” Richie sat up in his chair all of a sudden and leaned toward me. “Or maybe a Jewish cheese snack, one that they fried, one that looked a hell of a lot like a Cheeto!”

Richie smiled and leaned closer. “That’s it,” he said, his voice lower now, “and maybe Jesus was doing other miracle stuff that they never wrote down in the Bible. Maybe turning the water into wine was just one of his party miracles. Maybe he was leaving signs all over the Holy Land ... every time they invited him to a wedding, or a birthday party, or Bar Mitzvah ... maybe he was getting his image out there and you couldn’t go to a party in those times without somebody finding Jesus in the snack food. And now today, in these modern times, here’s this lady in Missouri finding Jesus on a cross on a Cheeto, and everybody’s all excited ... but if you lived in the olden days, like anywhere in the same time zone where Jesus was, you’d be thinking that Jesus was everywhere, that he was part of every party, and they didn’t have to go on TV to talk about it.”

Richie stopped to catch his breath, and perhaps to ponder the magnitude of his theory, and he just sat there staring at the closeup of the Jesus Cheeto on the big screen and nodding his head.

“Well,” I said, “these are wonderful times we live in, no doubt about it. What do you say we go to church together this Sunday.”

“Good idea, man. I’ve got a few questions for the minister. Do you think he might be preaching on the Jesus Cheeto? That would be truly awesome.”

After a while we got off the Cheeto talk and settled in to watch the Red Sox and Angels game from Fenway. About the second inning, however, Richie strolled into the kitchen and came back with an unopened bag of crunchy Cheetos and a large mixing bowl. He proceeded to pour the entire contents of the bag into the bowl, then grinned at me and asked me to help. “Don’t eat them without inspecting them first,” he said. Richie’s First Commandment. I told him I’d be careful. We spent the rest of the game reverently consuming way too many Cheetos. All the evidence of our exploit was in the new color of our fingertips. Fortunately there was enough beer on hand to wash down the crunchy snacks.

Alas, I must report that we didn’t find a Jesus Cheeto. And yet ... in the bottom of the bowl ... Richie did discover one Cheeto that he swore looked just like the face of Madonna. Not the Madonna from the Bible, but Richie was grateful at that point for any sign.

Ah, my friend Richie. As I said before, when the Jesus Cheeto news came on the TV I was glad I was not alone.