I’ve always believed that America’s defining trait is its ability to take a bad idea, wrap it in convenience, market it as freedom, and then defend it to the death like it’s a founding principle. This is a country where people will finance a mattress with 72-month APR and then sleep on it like Thomas Jefferson personally endorsed the coil count.
So it should surprise no one—absolutely no one—that we’ve now reached the logical conclusion of this cultural trajectory:
You can go into debt for nachos.
DoorDash has teamed up with Klarna, the buy-now-pay-later people, to let you break your snack run into four neat, digestible payments. Four easy steps to debt-induced indigestion.
We’re not talking about a new car. We’re not even talking about a new phone. We’re talking about splitting payments on a melted cheese pile someone else drove to your house.
Now, I get it. BNPL isn’t new. It’s everywhere. You can use it to buy sneakers, makeup, headphones, fake plants, real plants, sex toys, and yoga retreats you’ll bail on. But something about nachos feels different. It’s not that it’s worse—it’s that it’s perfect. The idea of going into debt for nachos is so absurd that it loops all the way back around to being, well, kind of a genius metaphor.
Because if America is about anything, it’s about immediate gratification disguised as self-care. And nothing says “self-care” like telling yourself you deserve tortilla chips covered in dairy and sodium—especially if you can convince yourself that Future You will handle the bill. Future You is a mythological figure in our economic folklore. Future You is always richer, more responsible, and has a spreadsheet. Present You is hungry and emotionally fragile and very good at rationalizing terrible decisions. Klarna doesn’t care. Klarna just wants you to get the nachos.
There’s a strange optimism in this arrangement. You’re not borrowing money out of desperation. You’re borrowing it out of hope. It’s a high-five to the universe. “I believe in myself enough to think this will all work out by the time the fourth payment hits.” That’s not debt. That’s faith-based finance.
The problem is that these kinds of purchases don’t register emotionally the way “real” debt does. You’re not signing a mortgage. You’re tapping your phone with your thumb while sitting on the toilet, telling yourself that you’re doing something “smart” because you’re not putting it on a 20% APR credit card. It’s not just frictionless—it’s consequence-free until it isn’t.
Because one day, your bank account hits zero. You forget about the second installment. Klarna auto-debits your checking account, and your rent check bounces because you forgot you owed $8.75 for a quesadilla you don’t even remember eating. Suddenly, you’re paying late fees for a craving. You’re overdrafting over jalapeños.
It’s the financial equivalent of time-traveling back three weeks and punching yourself in the face.
But here’s the twist: you’ll do it again. Of course you will. Not because you’re dumb, but because this is what we’ve been conditioned to do. Our economy is built on desire without delay. Everything is on demand. Everything is customizable. Everything is easy, until the bill comes due. Klarna didn’t invent this system—it just figured out how to make it edible.
The most American thing isn’t freedom, or guns, or freedom with guns. It’s the belief that you can buy something you can’t afford, enjoy it like you can, and rationalize it later as a “small price to pay” for happiness. Even if it’s nachos.
Maybe that’s bleak. Maybe it’s hilarious. Probably both.
But it’s definitely American.
