Dude Steals the 'Last Dorito' He and His Girlfriend Were Saving and Swaps It With a Fake

Remember The Sandlot — the greatest baseball movie of all time — in which Smalls filches his stepdad's (a '50s-styled Denis Leary) prized baseball that he kept on a stand because it was signed by Babe Ruth, then he hits a home run using it and the ball flies over the fence into The Beast's backyard and he and his friends spend the whole summer trying to get it back from the giant, slobbery dog but first, they buy a cheap ball and replace it to make sure his stepdad doesn't find out?

Well, this is exactly the story of The Sandlot, only it's real, and it's happening now, during the COVID-19 pandemic, and instead of a Babe-Ruth-signed baseball, it's a single Cool Ranch Dorito.

Chuck McCarthy and his girlfriend are currently hunkering down like the rest of us, so you probably understand how difficult it has been for them to get their favorite snacks. They love Doritos, but when you're doing your essential shopping trip once every two weeks, you're probably not focusing on stocking up on those salty, savory tortilla chips.

When they got down to their last chip, they couldn't decide who should eat it, so they decided that neither of them should, that they should save the chip as a shrine to their love for Doritos. They put it under that glass cake dome to display it because they are hilarious.

But Chuck couldn't take it anymore. He decided he needed that chip. So he devised a plan to get it. He would simply swap it with a replica and enjoy that very last Dorito. It was the perfect plan.

He posted the whole journey on Imgur. He explained that he "used wet toilet paper to sculpt a basic Dorito triangle." He added some glue and yellow watercolor "for color and structure."

I don't know that I've ever seen someone take a craft so seriously. He even compared the color to the real thing to make sure he was on the right track. How he did this while quarantined in the same home as his girlfriend, we'll never know. 

Then, he put the chip in the toaster to "dry out" so it would hold its shape. Chuck spoke to Bored Panda and told them that, at first, he only planned on spending about 10 minutes on this thing, thinking his girlfriend would think it was a funny joke. 

But when he had that chip in the toaster, he realized that he was kind of nailing this thing, and he decided to go all in. By the time he'd finished, his little 10-minute project had turned into a 3-hour affair. 

After the "chip" had dried out, he added some more glue and color and let it dry overnight, "draped over an old pen to give it the same wave form as the original." He wasn't about to ruin the bit because of a poorly shaped chip. 

Once the chip was dried and shaped, Chuck knew that he had to add the signature red and green speckles of seasoning that are iconic to Cool Ranch Doritos. And this is where things got extremely hairy.

He knew that watercolors would run too much, so he decided to "try a suggestion from the comments" on his original post about it. Someone suggested that he use the seasoning from the actual chips. 

So Chuck knew what he had to do. He fished the empty bag of Doritos out of the garbage to retrieve the seasoning. Gross, sure, but also shows some incredible commitment.

He tried using tweezers and scissors to place the individual specks of seasoning on the "chip," but surprise, surprise. It didn't work. "Apparently, the only surfaces that the spices will stick to are Dorito chips and your fingers," he wrote.

So he tried another tactic. He used a needle to paint tiny specks of red and green seasoning on his "chip." And folks, it kind of worked. He says this was the most "intense" part of the process because his girlfriend was on a call and he thought she could walk in at any second.

It might not look exactly like a Dorito from way up close, but if you're looking at it from across the room and under a glass dome, it would fool ya for a second!

He was actually going to wait until his girlfriend had fallen asleep to "pull off the switch," but she decided to take a bath, so he did it then. And it actually looks pretty good. 

If you think Chuck wasted any time eating that last chip, you are sorely mistaken. The second it was out from under that glass dome and the replacement chip had taken its place, he ate the last real chip. 

Chuck told Bored Panda that his girlfriend hasn't noticed the chip yet, but she has noticed that he cleaned the toaster oven, so that's good. He hopes that when she does eventually find out, she'll have a good sense of humor about it. And he said that next time they have to go to the store, they'll probably get another bag of Cool Ranch Doritos.