In June 2022, I tested positive for Covid on the morning that I was supposed to fly back home to Austin from a work trip in New York. For some reason I really did not want to stay at the hotel in New York for a few more days on the company's money (which in retrospect sounds great, I really should've just done that), I decided to rent a car and drive back to Austin. It was a very memorable experience that I actually enjoyed a lot despite feeling a little miserable at times, but that's not the point of this post.
After getting back home I spent the next few days isolated in our bedroom, which my astonishly beautiful now-wife had prepared ahead of time with a bunch of snacks and such for me. One of those snacks was Bigs Takis-flavored sunflower seeds (the image on this post is of that actual first bag she bought for me). I've never really been a sunflower seeds person so I thought it was kind of a random choice, but love finds a way.
These sunflower seeds are by a significant margin, with maybe the exception of Doritos Flamas, the best tasting snack I've ever had. And the value. A bag of sunflower seeds can last so long and for like...$2-3? These held a virtual monopoly on my snack consumption for months and months. And I know I wasn't alone -- they would very often be out of stock at the grocery store while the shelves stayed full of all of the other inferior flavors.
The Bigs Takis sunflower seeds disappeared from store shelves sometime in 2024 or 2025. I assume the reason has to do with some boring business non-sense like a licensing deal expiring. Every time I'm in a convenience store now I take a peek at the sunflower seeds selection just in case. Bigs does seem to come out with new flavors all of the time, and I do try some of them hoping that maybe they'll just re-release the Takis flavor under a different name, but so far no luck. Maybe Takis will start selling their own sunflower seeds with the same flavoring. Maybe Bigs will read this post and be so overwhelmed with emotion from my powerful writing that they re-introduce the flavor out of a feeling of moral obligation. Only time will tell. For now though, you can buy them on eBay for like $25+ a bag LMAO.
