Snacking and studying belong together but chip-chewing crunches and the need for quiet in a library do not. However, with the right skills, you can get in and out of a chip bag without making a sound. Discrete Chip Eating 101: Crash Course Library etiquette dictates being as quiet as a church mouse, right? Little more than a whisper will result in the reference desk attendant giving you the stink-eye for the remaining three hours you need to research. The trouble is, you’re hungry from running around all day and stressed cramming for a test that reviews a semester of work. Comfort foods help and the king of comfort is a bag of crunchy, salty potato chips. The problem is, you’ve got noisy chips in a zone where so much as a peep will get you maligned for life (OK, that’s an exaggeration but it feels like that’ll happen.). Still, the risk is worth it. We know it, and you know it, which is why we’re here to help you 007 your way into and through a
bag of chips without that hawk-eyed librarian hearing a crumb drop. If You Can, Plan Ahead University libraries have soundproofed study rooms, which can be booked for private and group study sessions. The thing is, they’re reserved in advance, so if you’re a planner or a graduate or medical student who has been around the library for a while, book a study room not because you need the privacy or table space but so you can nosh on chips with reckless abandon. No discrete openings or slow, quiet crunching for you. Just try not to mock the poor chip smugglers for whom the rest of this article is intended. The College Student’s Guide to Library Snack Attacks As experienced chip-eaters, you know of several hurdles to overcome when enjoying chips in the library. The first is just opening the bag; next, you have to get the chips out of the bag; and finally, you have to eat the chips. Let’s start with
gaining entry. 1. Mission: Get into Bag: So, chip bags are made from notoriously noisy materials, which is part of what makes them delightful except in a library. Though we all prefer to enter the bag like a one-person demolition team, the goal here is to quietly enter the chip bag. Here are three strategies for covert entry: • Bring a pair of scissors and cut the bag’s top off; this will give you the easiest access into the chips. • Use the bag’s easy tear / open tab to gain entry. If you do this, note, you must operate slowly as going too fast could result in bag breakage and chip spillage or a skewed tear leaving you with the worst outcome imaginable – little to no chip access. • If you have a nail clipper,
MacGyver a hole in the side of the chip bag near the top, creating your own easy-tear access point. Proceed slowly and with caution. 2. Mission: Getting to the Chip: The size of your bag will play a role in how hard it is for you to overcome this obstacle. We’re all for being a hero and showing up to win with a deluxe-sized bag of potato chips – something that you can fit both hands into without making a sound. But we understand that it’s easy to empty a bag in one sitting with this kind of approach. It’s so hard to stop eating when studying because … the stress. So, this advice is for bags of all smaller sizes. • Using a piece of scrap paper as a plate, slowly empty the chips a few at a time onto the paper “plate” and proceed to step three, eating. The problem here is that now everyone knows you’re eating chips, and the librarian is still judging you. • Extend your fingers like tweezers into the bag and procure a chip; proceed to step three. The difficulty in this approach is that the chip-eating activity is slow and laborious and the more frequently you enter the bag, the more likely it is you will make a sound. (Note, as you get to the end of the bag, under no circumstances should you try to get to the crumbs with finger tweezers; go with a make-shift paper plate to leave no chip behind.) • Come prepared; bring actual tweezers for prolonged chip retrieval. 3. Mission: Eating the Chips: Victory is so close you can almost taste it – literally. The final and most important step is eating the chip. • Here you must, must battle your natural inclination to bite first. Close your mouth; don’t bite yet. • Usher the chip to the back of your mouth. • Flip a page in your notebook and bite simultaneously. The noise of the turned page should mask any crunching. Another tip is, don’t be a hero – eat one chip at a time. Mastery of the ability to eat chips without making a sound is – like everything you do in college – a skill you will use for the rest of your life and especially when you have children. Children have extra-sensory powers when it comes to snack foods, and they tend to swarm when alerted to the possibility of a snack. Best you start training now. Happy studying.
