READY, FIRE, AIM: Chip Smuggling, Out of Control?

My dentist has eclectic tastes in magazines. Better Homes & Gardens, Rolling Stone, The New Yorker, Bon Appetit, People, Guns & Ammo…

I had just finished People Magazine — always a quick read, if you’re in a hurry, and most of us are probably in a hurry at the dentist’s office. In a hurry to get it over with.

But the receptionist hadn’t called me yet, so I was thumbing through the stack and found The Economist. Really, how many dentists subscribe to The Economist? I have no idea.

I picked it up (purely out of curiosity) and barely had time to scan the cover before the receptionist called out, “We’re ready for you, Mr. Cannon…”

During that momentary glance, an article headline on the cover had caught my eye:

Chip smuggling out of control

But they were ready for me. So that curious headline lingered in my thoughts as I settled into the chair to wait for the hygienist.

“Chip smuggling out of control”.

It made no sense to me. Questions rolled around in my mind, and I was frankly kicking myself for not bringing the magazine with me.

Who would want, or need, to smuggle chips? And what kind of chips was it necessary to smuggle?

It sounded so mysterious, and yet captivating.

Were these potato chips?

Or corn chips?

Or more exotic chips, like maybe plantain chips, or banana chips? I’ve recently come across carrot chips, and beet chips, and even taro root chips.

Obviously, it’s become more challenging to get chips of any type across the border, from one country to the next, what with the tariff war going on. But in my experience, the chips aisle was always one of the best stocked aisles at the grocery store.

Still waiting on the hygienist… these questions were keeping my mind pleasantly distracted from the upcoming dental cleaning.

Maybe I was on the totally wrong track? The magazine article might have been talking about ‘poker chips’. I can easily imagine people needing to smuggle poker chips, considering the number of places where gambling is still illegal.

Or else, wood chips?

My understanding is that most wood chips come from Canada, a country that used to be our friends, but now the border has become problematic. Precarious, even. It’s very possible these were the kinds of chips getting smuggled.

Still waiting on the hygienist.

Then it hit me, that restaurants in the U.K. — a foreign country to most of us — serve a menu item called “fish and chips”. Which is some type of white fish served with French fries. They naturally need a different name than ‘French fries’ because the English have had a strained relationship with the French ever since the Battle of Hastings in 1066, which marked the beginning of the conquest of England by the French and the end of Anglo-Saxon rule.

Possibly, certain British people were smuggling French fries? But calling them, “chips”?

This provided a feasible (but slightly bizarre) interpretation, because the main offices for The Economist are in the U.K. The staff probably ate fish and chips for lunch.

You can probably tell, by this point, how hard I was kicking myself for not bringing the magazine with me into the treatment room, and putting the mystery to bed.

When you’re waiting to get your teeth cleaned and you’re surrounded by all that ominous-looking dentist machinery, it helps to have a magazine.

But the next best thing is an unanswerable question.