Jar of Frito Cheese Dip

Resting by the basement window on an abandoned house near where I live, this jar of Frito Cheese Dip remained for several months. Each time I'd drive by, its continued presence would become just a little more unsettling. I took this shot a few weeks ago, thinking I might post about it. Today, however, it was finally gone. Except for the lid.

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Moriarty

Real connoisseurs don’t rely on artificial cheese caves for a perfect aging.
cmuwriter

That reminds me of the time my college roommate, Ben, and I ate “sidewalk nachos”. We were horribly drunk and decided to walk to a 7-11 on the edge of Central Michigan University’s campus and pooled out money together to buy a shitload of snacks, including some nachos and cheese. I tripped and dropped them on the sidewalk near the back of the building, and we managed to scrape the majority off the sidewalk. They were still good, but as we sat against the building on that hot summer night I crunched a piece of grit between my teeth, me thinks.
Brandon West

Mmmmmmm….. floor pie.
inness

It’s clear what’s been going on and I’m surprised no one put two and two together with all the evidence right there in plain sight.
Clearly someone or something living behind the wooden door used the ledge as a single-item refrigerator. I suspect an alternate dimension, and furthermore, I theorize that foodstuffs from our world would not be welcome, thus forcing the lover of exotic, artificial cheese dip to return the jar to its spot some time before dawn each day.
When the jar was finally empty the unknown entity peeled off the label, which blew away as all bits of paper do, and took the jar into the alternate world, either for a momento or to recycle.
Despite the immense amount of information we don’t have about this alternate reality behind the wooden door, at least we now know that they cannot recycle metal lids.
The situation is a rather simple exercise in deduction. Elementary, I would say.
philos

So who wrote the original graffiti on the wall and what did it say?

Was it a simple request for a jar of cheese product to some unknown future denizens of this now crumbling world that has only now been answered? Has the author of this now ancient request been humbly checking this very spot for decades with the hope of finally receiving the sole object of his desire? Had he, losing hope, cut his visits down to once per season? Oh, imagine the overwhelming joy, the bliss of turning the corner and seeing that tiny jar of sunshine, finally, finally after all these years. And then grasping it between old, tired fingers twisting off the lid and letting it fall gently to the ground, diving into the creamy goodness within, slathering a big ol’ oozing glop into a now toothless maw, and then wandering, exultant, off into the sunset finally able to let go of this world and its trappings, fulfilled at last.

There just has to be a message there, I know it, I can feel it in my bones. Don’t those shingles have a 50 or 75 year life expectancy? It’s a communication from the past I tell ye!
Tom Hale

No doubt down a nearby alley you find the body of a dead raccoon with the jar stuck on it’s head.

About 2 years ago, I was pulling back into the station on the ambulance at around 3am when a raccoon came running across the apron with it’s head stuck in a Tropicana juice bottle. It was obviously panicking, running out of air and was trying to climb the brick wall. I got out and grabbed the bottle and held it up and it’s head slipped free – it just sat there for a moment staring at me, then scurried off and climbed a tree. I like to think I gained a few good karma points there.

Of course I never litter, but since then I’ve always been more aware at just how dangerous discarded food containers are for urban wildlife.
Anonymous

In college someone left a container of bean dip on a window ledge that was obscured by a couch. The dip had about 3 scoops taken out of the middle. Over time (who knows how long) the remaining dip had turned into a ceramic like substance, leaving an oddly formed void in the middle of the dip. We removed the can and placed it on the coffee table, telling people it was an art project ashtray. People used it as such for an entire semester.
Anonymous

Yummy!
pupdog

I’m guessing after that long the dip finally grew sentient, shattered the jar and walked itself away, leaving the cap behind as the only evidence of its unholy birth.
- MrsBug
  
  Dang, pupdog, First AND an awesome entry. So funny.
Anonymous

The dip creature would not shatter the jar, for that would destroy it’s maturation chamber and now current exoskeleton
TharkLord

The Lander has returned to the Mothership.

And now… Phase 2!
Halloween Jack

The idea that someone would open it after all that time is sublimely horrifying.
chumprock

Many years ago I used to live in a downtown loft, and worked at a music club/bar around a corner and through an alley.
Every day, while walking through said alley, there was a ledge quite similar to the one picutred that always had a Bologna sandwich wrapped in a plastic bag. I know for a fact that there was always a “new” sandwich put there, because when I would return home, late at night after work, the sandwich was gone (and occasionally I’d see the empty baggie).

This went on for the entire time I lived and worked in that area. My roomates and I would often speculate what it was all about, and occasionally consider making an alternate sandwich, or just taking it outright.
I never did figure out what that was all about, but my most likely conclusion was that there was a mentally ill “walker” who may have chosen the same route daily, and his provider/parent may have left him snacks along the way.

Thanks for reminding me of that oddity.
- dbarak
  
  I’m guessing it was the Poe Toaster that was leaving the sandwiches.
thedarkharlequin

There’s a french onion dip jar in the parking lot at my work. Same form factor as your cheese dip. It’s been sitting on or next to a light post since about the time I started this job. I’ve been working here 5 years now. The label has disappeared and the lid is now sun faded to white.
I like to think I have other coworkers who keep tabs on it too, and though we’ve never met, I feel we’re all connected through this little jar.
TulsaTV

Remisiscent of “The Stinky Meat Project” site:

“This is what happened in the summer of 2000 when I took 3 kinds of meat, 19 days, and 1,000,000 maggots, and stuck them in the yard of my unwitting neighbor.”

http://www.stinkymeat.net
- Anonymous
  
  Sweet jesus. I just went through the site and read both experiments, it was hilarious but horrible at the same time lol.
Anonymous

there was a burrito, perhaps a sandwich, rapped in paper, sitting on a ledge in a cement parking garage near where I work. It was there for weeks. Perfectly rapped. Secure from all outside forces. Until one day, it was gone.
pixleshifter

the jar possibly exploded after pressure built up inside it as the cheese dip rotted.
cymk

Alas, poor Frito Dip! I knew him, Potato Chips, a fellow of infinite taste, of most excellent fancy. He hath fed me a thousand times, and now how abhorr’d my empty stomach is! My gorge rises at it.
BukaHobbit

Holy schnikes, there is a sentient jar of cheese dip running around somewhere topless.
jdixon

At a bus stop I witnessed the owner of a heavily-laden bicycle stop at a weekly free newspaper box- the kind with a front-opening door-remove all the papers, stash several loaves of bread he had in his bags, then replace the papers. Interpreted it as squirrelling behavior, and imagined paper boxes all over the area hid undiscovered food stashes. Paper delivery people must find all kinds of interesting things when they renew the papers!
Lester

It reminds me of the odd bicycle that keeps moving its way down my street. It started almost a year ago, chained to a signpost two blocks up, since then it has slowly moved down the hill, past my house and nearer the train station at the bottom, two blocks down, chained to signs or telephone poles along the way. It is horribly rusted, the leather seat has decayed, the tires are flat and I’ve never seen anybody riding it.

I think it is an art project in slow motion.
dman

It could be a scene out of Tom (“Even Cowgirls get the Blues”) Robins’ : “Skinny legs and all”

A good half of that book is taken up with a sentient Can o’ Beans (accompanied by Dirty Sock and Silver Spoon) observing action on the street from a basement window.
obdan

It never went bad, it just went away.
Anonymous

Somehow, it sends chills down my spine by invoking the world of The Road. Of course, that reality is all I can think about since reading that book/seeing that film.
Anonymous

The secret knowledge of the flaneur. I know it well.
laikaislost

What a wonderful entry. The short story of the dip is absolutely fantastic. There are so many questions, a plot twist, and room for a sequel. Thank you.
LostCatSoda

Oh, it’s still around. Maybe it snuck into your closet and is waiting for nightfall.