A man went to an extraordinary amount of effort to make a fake Dorito so he could eat the last chip without his girlfriend knowing

Sophie-Claire HoellerApr 24, 2020, 23:02 IST

The (real) last Dorito chip.Chuck McCarthy

A California couple were faced with a dilemma when they got to the bottom of a bag of Doritos: Who would get the last full chip?
They decided that no one would, and instead propped the chip up under a cheese dome.
Chuck McCarthy decided to create an intricate replica using paper-mache so he could eat the last chip without his girlfriend knowing.
At the time of writing, McCarthy said his girlfriend still didn't know.
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Quarantine is making people do some wacky things. Some are baking inordinate amounts of banana bread, others are building picnic tables for squirrels, others again are creating high-fashion looks using a blanket.

Chuck McCarthy, an actor hunkered down in his Hollywood home, spent the better part of a day creating a single Dorito chip out of paper-mache.

When California first implemented its lockdown, McCarthy and his girlfriend bought four bags of Doritos, but they went through them faster than they anticipated. Wanting to ration their snacks and limit their runs to the grocery store, they found themselves faced with a dilemma: Who would get the last Dorito?

"We were eating the last bag of Doritos, Cool Ranch, and we kind of both went for the last full chip," he told Insider. "And we couldn't decide who would get it, so we decided to just save that last chip."

They even propped it up under a cheese dome. But, less than a day later, McCarthy said the chip began taunting him; that's when he decided to create an exact replica so he could eat the chip without his girlfriend knowing.

Keep scrolling to see the remarkable amount of work that McCarthy, who says he went to art school, put into creating the faux chip.

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McCarthy says he'd do it again. "As an artist and as an actor, I try not to look at anything as a waste of time. I mean, it wasn't a waste of time, I got to eat the last Dorito and she still hasn't noticed."

"It tasted great. Excellent," he said. Chuck McCarthy

McCarthy says he'd do it again. "As an artist and as an actor, I try not to look at anything as a waste of time. I mean, it wasn't a waste of time, I got to eat the last Dorito and she still hasn't noticed."

At the time of writing, McCarthy said four days had passed and his girlfriend hadn't noticed.

The forgery now sits in the cheese dome. Chuck McCarthy

He then switched out the original chip with the replica while his girlfriend was taking a bath, and enjoyed the spoils of his labor by devouring the original. "It tasted great. Excellent," he said.

He secretly switched the chips. Chuck McCarthy

He then switched out the original chip with the replica while his girlfriend was taking a bath, and enjoyed the spoils of his labor by devouring the original. "It tasted great. Excellent," he said.

"It just turned into kind of an obsessive project," he said. "Obviously at this point in time I don't really have very much else to do, so it was a good time."

The replica looks remarkably like the original. Chuck McCarthy

He let the fake chip dry fully draped over a pen to get the perfect wavy shape the original had.

He used watercolors. Chuck McCarthy

He took it out when it was mostly dry, and continued to work on getting the color just right. He even used a needle to add hand-painted flecks of spice.

He originally attempted to add real spices from the bottom of the bag, but they wouldn't stick. Chuck McCarthy

"At that point it was too wet to really do anything else, so I put it in my toaster oven for an hour and basically cooked it," he said, adding that he worried it might burst into flames.

He dried it by cooking it in a toaster oven. Chuck McCarthy

"At that point it was too wet to really do anything else, so I put it in my toaster oven for an hour and basically cooked it," he said, adding that he worried it might burst into flames.

He then added some glue and an ochre color.

A closeup of the paper mache chip. Chuck McCarthy

To make his fake Dorito chip, Chuck McCarthy first took some toilet paper, folding it into a basic triangle shape before wetting it and molding it some more.

The original chip and the forgery. Chuck McCarthy

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A man went to an extraordinary amount of effort to make a fake Dorito so he could eat the last chip without his girlfriend knowing

McCarthy says he'd do it again. "As an artist and as an actor, I try not to look at anything as a waste of time. I mean, it wasn't a waste of time, I got to eat the last Dorito and she still hasn't noticed."

At the time of writing, McCarthy said four days had passed and his girlfriend hadn't noticed.

He then switched out the original chip with the replica while his girlfriend was taking a bath, and enjoyed the spoils of his labor by devouring the original. "It tasted great. Excellent," he said.

"It just turned into kind of an obsessive project," he said. "Obviously at this point in time I don't really have very much else to do, so it was a good time."

He let the fake chip dry fully draped over a pen to get the perfect wavy shape the original had.

He took it out when it was mostly dry, and continued to work on getting the color just right. He even used a needle to add hand-painted flecks of spice.

"At that point it was too wet to really do anything else, so I put it in my toaster oven for an hour and basically cooked it," he said, adding that he worried it might burst into flames.

He then added some glue and an ochre color.

To make his fake Dorito chip, Chuck McCarthy first took some toilet paper, folding it into a basic triangle shape before wetting it and molding it some more.