By Ray Chang
Crunching on the last Dorito chip, I savor the final kick of the ultra-processed product sure to linger in my bloodstream and disturb my gut microbiome. Ah yes, the pinnacle of procrastinating all of my journalism articles truly lies in munching on chips excessively embellished with sodium in the middle of the night, while thinking about what to write about. Surely, one bag of Doritos would not hurt that bad, would it? Boy was I wrong, because I was in for a wild ride. A wild ride without seat-belts, that is.
“Seat-belts everyone!” I heard echo beside my pillow, as I struggled between the domains of slumber and consciousness. At first I thought I was dreaming, but no, I kept hearing those darn voices. Shortly after this mysterious lady’s voice barged into my sleep and told everyone to buckle up, she started saying all this stuff about “taking chances” and “making mistakes” and “getting messy,” all for the scientific process. Okay, now I was really disturbed. Like I’ve heard voices all the time in my sleep because dreaming is a natural part of the circadian rhythm, but dude, these voices were different. These arcane and muffled voices reverberated from my appendix to my ears. That’s when it hit me—was Ms. Frizzle from The Magic School Bus on a field trip exploring and learning about the digestive system in me? Me, a scrawny asian kid built like a toothpick just trying to get by in high school? I still couldn’t believe it, until Ms. Frizzle started saying stuff about “not fretting” and “resting assured” and stuff like that. That’s when I felt a little tickle in my cranium, and also when I half-realized that Ms. Frizzle decided to use her cartoony and reality-bending powers to probe my brain into telepathically communicating with her through the scientific manipulation of charged signals and neurons and such. All this science-y stuff was too much for me, but at least I felt the graceful liberator of drowsiness enshroud me as I allowed Ms. Frizzle and her crew to take a field trip in my digestive system pumpin’ with the remnants of Dorito chunks.
Before I knew it, the tingling in my skull came back a second time. This time though, the tingle traveled down my spine like a roller coaster, and I could see through a suspicious brain-projector gizmo thingy that triangulated on Ms. Frizzle’s bus. Apparently her bus was cascading down a swirling neon-orange river of what seemed to be Dorito dust and stomach acid. Ralphie was stuck between gagging dramatically and formulating words that went along the lines of “Why does it smell like feet and despair?” while Arnold clung to the side of the bus, muttering that he “knew he should’ve stayed home today.” Wow, maybe I really do fit the stereotype of a stinky teenage boy. Anyways, Ms. Frizzle was as unfazed as always. She kept babbling on about “chemosensory chaos,” while steering straight toward what looked like a bubbling whirlpool of half-digested tortilla shards. As they plunged in with a collective and triumphant “WOOHOO!” I felt an abrupt churn in my gut that instantly jolted me awake.
Clutching my stomach, I swore to never eat Doritos ever again. Was this bizarre experience just a dream? Nah, it was way too surreal to be just a dream. Whether or not the mythical Ms. Frizzle ever really traversed into my biological system as a field trip will forever remain a mystery, but I now know that eating ultra-processed foods excessively, and especially at very late hours, is disastrous. On the bright side, at least I don’t have a hole in my stomach. That should be enough evidence that Ms. Frizzle never really went on a field trip inside of me, right?