Vinay Menon: Cheetos moves from snacks to inventing words and building a hideous statue in Alberta

We often debate statues that need to come down.

Maybe it’s time to talk about ones that should never go up. I direct your attention to “The Cheetle Hand Statue,” which as far as I can tell, is the world’s first monument devoted to snack food dust.

As PepsiCo Foods Canada marketers explained in a release: “That’s right, Canada, there’s an official term – and now a statue – for the powdery residue that’s left behind after eating your favourite Cheetos snacks…”

Why either is needed remains a mystery.

Cheetle? I can’t see this brand neologism infiltrating the popular lexicon. Try using it in a sentence: “Dude, be careful, you’re getting cheetle on my bong. Dude, Jungian synchronicity is an acausal connecting principle in the material world that ultimately binds our ethereal spirits with cheetle.”

Didn’t we already have a word for when your fingers get grimy after binge-eating empty calories from a foil-laminated feed bag? That’s not cheetle, you disgusting slob. You are dirty. You just gobbled 173 Cheetos Crunchies and your hands look like they are dipped in potassium dichromate.

Don’t rub your eyes or that glass of milk will look like Fanta.

It’s one thing to make up a new word. Watching the Jays epic collapse on Saturday, a new word came shooting out of my mouth: Bwhaaanooo! This assault on our beautiful language has been unfolding from jiggy to okurrr.

But these maniacs at Cheetos are not limiting their ambitions to Merriam-Webster. No, they just erected a 17-foot sculpture in Cheadle, Alta.

“The Cheetle Hand Statue” is a misnomer. The cheap bastards only paid for three partial fingers that are jutting up from the scorched ground like a tripod on an unmarked grave holding a Cheeto the shape of a rhino turd.

I get this is a publicity stunt. But if the goal was to go viral as passersby snap selfies to share on social with the requisite hashtags, this exhibit might be too hideous to work. The great k.d. lang tweeted a photo this weekend, in which she’s grinning in the foreground of The Cheetle Hand Statue.

It looks like a giant frankfurter just landed from Mars and is about to smash her salt-and-pepper skull. If you squint, k.d. and the monstrous Cheeto look to be made by mad scientists in cahoots with Crayola and Play-Doh.

There are some creepy statues in this world. Why is that naked man kicking a baby in Oslo? Is that Australian sheep reclining legs-up in lounger getting a gynecological exam? What on earth did they do to Lucille Ball? Why does she look like a demonically possessed Carl Lewis after a 100-metre dash?

You know what else is weird? The Cheetle Hand Statue was installed in Cheadle, Alta. – population about three classes at my daughters’ school – just because it sounds similar. Why not forklift the unsightly sculpture into Don Cheadle’s backyard and give him a lifetime supply of Cheetos Popcorn?

It’s as if Froot Loops commissioned a cereal tunnel in Kamloops or Red Bull installed skyscraper-sized cans in Red Deer. I wouldn’t be surprised if Tim Hortons is in talks with artist Andrew Dutkewych to chisel and contour boulders into doughnut holes for a new public display: Timbits in Timmins!

I feel sorry for the residents of Cheadle. These compatriots living in a quiet hamlet woke up this month to find three disembodied silver alien fingers smeared with orange holding a phallic Cheeto that is humping their sky.

Would you want to leave your house and see a 10-storey Twinkie?

I read the press release, eager to see if any Alberta politicians would be quoted. Surely, Danielle Smith has some thoughts on Cheetos Crunchy Flamin’ Hot Cheese. But, no. The local comment fell to one James Gosteli, president of the Cheadle Community Club.

“Cheadle is proud to be home to the Cheetle Hand Statue,” he said, even in print sounding like an ISIS hostage. “Where else could the Cheetos brand honour the iconic Cheetle, if not here.”

Well, they could have gone to Seattle. That sounds a bit like Cheetle.

And how can a new word be iconic?

If you are planning a pilgrimage to behold the Cheetle Hand Statue in its nightmare-inducing and stomach-churning glory, you have until Nov. 4. After that, who knows, maybe Cheadle will get a titanium Pringles dome.

Lisa Allie, senior marketing director at PepsiCo Foods Canada, summed it up as follows: “Cheetos fans have always known that the delicious, cheesy dust on their fingertips is an unmistakably delicious part of the Cheetos experience, but now it officially has a name: Cheetle.”

Why everything in life is now classified as an “experience” is another mystery. When I make a tuna sandwich in a zombie daze because I’m still shellshocked by that Jays meltdown, I’m not having a Jacques Cousteau experience. If you fall off a cliff, this is not an experience with gravity.

As for “Cheetle,” only one word comes to mind: Bwhaaanooo!

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