Doritos & Coke

Whenever I traveled to the U.S. over summer holidays, there were two tastes that confirmed I had arrived in this country, which back then seemed amazing and strange and wonderful. When landing in Miami, our first stop would always be a car rental office. We loaded our luggage into one of those buses with the alley in the middle and sat in anticipation. There was just the four of us: my parents, my twin and I, so we always found room. There was always so much anticipation-I remember looking out into the street through the tinted windows of the bus and being enthralled by all the traffic, the chaos and the order. 

When we arrived at the rental office, while the parents decided on a car, which would usually be a Buick or Chrysler or some other staple of Americana, we would beeline straight to the vending machine to get the first taste of our trip. Doritos and a Coke. We would indulge in it shamelessly, coloring our fingers orange and taking desperate swigs of the cold fizzy drink. They were perfect for each other.

This combination is a good example of returning to the simple things in life, or Obamanation’s encouraging Back to Basics mentality as a practical approach to the hiccups of the day.