Review: Cheese Crunch Wheat Thins & Awkward Mondays: Touching the Inside of a Urinal…the Horror
Junk Food Nation, I am BACK from my short hiatus. Did you miss me? I certainly missed you. West Coast IS very nice, but there’s just something about stepping off the plane at Dulles and freezing my ass off in mid-October. East Coast Beast Coast.
To those of you who have been entering my Justin’s candy contest, you’ve been great – almost 200 entries already! Hard to keep up with almost. For the rest of you, ENTER! Details on how to win a full case of Justin’s candy are here… you have until basically midnight EST tomorrow night, people. Do it to it.
On today’s Awkward Monday, I’d like to talk about something that happened to me this morning but has also happened in the past. As I was stopping into an airport bathroom during a layover, I followed the throngs of men looking to relieve themselves into the Men’s Room at LAX. SFO is a beautiful airport. LAX is a bit of a sh*t show, and the bathroom fit the profile. It was moist, slightly muggy, and everything was wet (see my rant about bathroom technology here).
I bellied up to the urinal – and it was one of those auto-flush ones … but of course, it was somewhat broken, because there was just this pool of urine in the base of the urinal, it was smelly, etc. No matter, I undid the super long drawstring to the Adidas sweats I was wearing, and did my business. As I went to hoist everything back up – I noticed that THE ENDS OF MY DRAWSTRINGS HAD BEEN RESTING ON THE FRONT LIP OF URINAL THE WHOLE TIME. GOD NO WHY PLEASE WHY NOOOOOOO. The tips of the drawstring were not dunked into the pool of urine, but were definitely sitting where urine has splashed and dried.
Needless to say, my mind exploded and I immediately went into panic mode, trying to figure out what to do and assess the situation. Do I try to wash the drawstrings off? Throw the pants entirely away? Burn the airport down? My wide eyes and thumping heart finally forced me over to the sink, where I quickly scrubbed the ends of the drawstrings, tied my pants, washed my hands like I had OCD, and evacuated the bathroom.
Has this ever happened to you? I get horrified when the belt I take to work touches the inside of a urinal at the TOP of the urinal… am I crazy, or am I normal? Please tell me in the comments below.
Today’s junk food: Cheese Crunch Wheat Thins!
Cheese Crunch Wheat Thins: The Money Shot
I haven’t reviewed Wheat Thins too often on this blog, but the ones I have had have been pretty great. The reason I haven’t reviewed very many is because, well, Wheat Things doesn’t come out with new flavors very often. Recently, they went through a big box design change, but that was about it. You see “Sun Dried Tomato Wheat Thins” with a new box, and think, “WHOA THOSE ARE NEW….wait, no I’ve had these before. It’s just a new box. Fail.”
So when I passed these Cheese Crunch Wheat Thins in a small shop in Mendecino, CA, I thought nothing of them, thinking they were just a re-design. But then, I stopped. And turned. And went back, staring at this box. Cheese Crunch? I’ve never heard of THAT before. And I stood there thinking. Cheese-flavored Wheat Thins??? What?
I have never seen these before
I was SO confused. There was no “new” label on them, but I was CERTAIN I’d never seen a cheese flavored Wheat Thin before. I knew that Wheat Thins has a cheese-flavored Artisan Crisp they’d rolled out before…but just a plain cheese flavored Wheat Thin itself? Cheese Crunch Wheat Thins? So foreign to me.
Taste the rainbow…of cheese
Cheese Crunch Wheat Thins can be found on Amazon, but I swear, I have never heard of these, never seen them in stores, and never eaten anything like them in the past. Have you? Have you seen these before? Please tell me in the comments below. Even on Amazon, they look like a rarity, with only a few boxes left in stock. Can’t seem to find them on the Nabisco site, either (though to be fair, the Nabisco site LOVES TO NOT LOAD. Fix your Flash, guys.)
10 Cal per
Cheddar Cheese, Sour Cream, Romano Cheese…
Cheese Crunch Wheat Thins are made up of a combo of cheddar cheese and romano cheese powders. Yummy. Would these be better than Cheez-Its? We shall see.
Standard Wheat Thin look
Cheese Crunch Wheat Thins had that great almost-sweet-flour-baked Wheat Thin smell when I opened the box. When I REALLY inhaled, I could catch a whiff if cheese, but it was subtle. Time to munch.
Up close, these were VERY powdered.
These Cheese Crunch Wheat Thins tasted pretty good! To set things straight, NOT better than Cheez-Its in my heart, but they don’t have to be to be successful.
These crackers start with that amazing Wheat Thin flavor – a baked wheat cracker that has a nice whole wheat taste and also a little bit of sweetness from the flour. Great crunch, and a hearty chew.
Add on top of that some nice white cheese flavor – honestly, I tasted more of the almost Parmesan-y Romano Cheese than anything else at first – bold, cheesy, and with a slight sweetness that matched the almost nutty flavor of the cracker. Then the cheddar kicked in, adding a nice sharp finish to the cracker flavor. Flavorful.
The cracker left delightful white powder on my fingers, which I happily licked off. These Cheese Crunch Wheat Thins were nothing novel, but they were done right. Please sell these on the East Coast, Nabisco. THUMBS. UP.
PURCHASED AT: Harvest at Mendosa’s Grocery in Mendecino, CA
COST: $3.99 (ooof)
Thoughts? Please comment below (I always reply) or hit me up on Twitter @junkfoodguy or LIKE my Facebook Page and message me there. Also, you can always email me at junkfoodguy@junkfoodguy.com. Let’s hang out.
Sincerely,
Junk Food Guy
Discuss - 13 Comments
Burn down the airport, that’s pretty funny. I don’t blame u for freaking out, I was cringing just thinking about it. Public bathrooms just give me the creeps.
@Will: It was a nightmare come true
I’ve got a box of ‘vermont white cheddar’ (not the ‘artisan’ ones that pop up on their site, just regular ‘vermont white cheddar’ wheat thins) ones in the cabinet that I haven’t tried yet, but I don’t recall seeing this kind before.
@Albany Dana – of course, then I got to target today, AND THERE THEY WERE! Man, Nabisco – you just like playing with me
Public bathrooms are the worst!! I know I’m in for a doozy when I walk in and immediately see filthy waste basket overflowing with paper towels. My fears are confirmed when I have to walk to the very last stall because the FIVE previous stalls were either full of filth, had the tissue paper thingie still on it, or worse, filth ON the seat!! And the last stall is no better… the ground is wet, the baby changing station is broken, and I feel like I’m gonna get tetanus or Hep A through Z just by hovering my tush to do my business. And I can’t even bring myself to touch ANYTHING in there without showering in hand sanitizer immediately after.
So no, you’re not crazy. Burn the whole thing down — the bathroom would at least be cleaner in the ashes.
Oh, and I’m not sure I like this new Wheat Thin… The cheesy powder doesn’t feel natural…
@Adi: WHY THE GROUND WET ALWAYS! Someone get a floor fan here, SOMETHING
My husband saw a six inch pube in a urinal in LAX. No joke.
@Stephanie – I just gagged
In one of my former lives I was standing at the urinal between a young Air Force captain and a Naval Academy Grad. The AF type said, “In the AF they teach you to wash your hands after going to the bathroom.” To which the Navy guy said, “At the academy they teach you not to pee on yourself”. Moral: mind your own gear in the john.
Just catching up on reading blogs after a Las Vegas vacation. Stopped to use the ladies room after my arrival at the Vegas airport. My loose shorts (didn’t want to have to remove a belt at security) fell past my knees while I sat and when I pulled them back up I felt wetness. Ack! The left side from waist to bottom off ass was soaked with floor “water”. I tied my hoodie around my waist and had to suffer through waiting for my checked bag, taxi line, hotel checkin, etc. before I could shower and change. Clothes ended up in the trash can.
@KRis: GAAAAAAAAAH I would’ve torched the airport bathroom and run out of there screaming
Hey, you fly into Dulles? That used to be my home turf! Well, and now getting there is a pain ever since Delta bought Northwest and killed Dulles’ status as a major hub, switching it all the way to Baltimore, which yes thank you MARC for getting me where I need to go EVENTUALLY, but I have better things to do than drift glumly through a dark Maryland wasteland.
Anywho I got here through a backtrack from the Brach’s S’mores thing, because as a woman I am unfamiliar with the urinal panic but a.) seems legit to me and b.) also seems hilarious, at least as written up by you.
I will now continue building Candycornhenge on my desk with these Brach’s S’mores.
@Metaphlame: Thanks for the read! I chuckled through your whole recap of public transit in this area. The MARC is a scary scary place 😉
Send me a picture of the Candy Corn Stone Hedge!