It’s the oldest trick in the book: a man wanders into a gas station hunting for Chex Mix, swears it isn’t there, and leaves empty-handed. His girlfriend walks in minutes later—and magically plucks the bag from the shelf. Sounds familiar? Maybe it rings a bell when your son can’t find his slides, or your husband can’t find the car keys, but the woman of the house easily discovers it within minutes.
The textbook definition is weaponized incompetence. TikTok, however, is calling it proof of what women have known forever: if something’s lost, a man will need a woman to find it.
Was There No Chex Mix?
In the approximately two-minute clip, Lily (@lilykthom) has garnered over four million views and plenty of social commentary. The video is taken from her boyfriend’s perspective in their car, showing Lily walking around in the gas station.
He starts off confident, stating: “Lily thinking she’s a smarta–, finding something I tell her there isn’t.”
His only task was to find Chex Mix in a gas station in Florida…where Chex Mix is (according to many viewers) always abundant. Yet, he still remains steadfast that there wasn’t any.
“Ladies and gentlemen, only time’s gonna tell how disappointed her face is gonna look when she knows I’m right and that there’s no Chex Mix,” he says.
We can all tell where this is going, right? Lo and behold, once Lily starts approaching the counter to pay, her boyfriend starts shaking in his boots:
“Oh [expletive],” he says. “I’m scared.”
Once she reenters the car, victorious with not only one, but two bags of ChexMix, she answers her boyfriend’s question of “Where did you find it?” with “Do you need glasses?”
Why Can’t Men Ever Find Anything?
It seems this viral TikTok has ignited an age-old headache. Women have come together to share the pain of having a man do this exact same thing to them in all aspects of life.
One viewer stated, “I think all the women here knew she was going to find it,” while another wrote, “Not a single woman doubted there was Chex Mix in that gas station.”
If you want to argue that maybe the men don’t do it on purpose, then let this comment seal the truth: “THEY. NEVER. LOOK. GOOD. ENOUGH.”
What’s Weaponized Incompetence?
As previously stated, this phenomenon is all too common. While women all over the world are well aware of how it feels, this label has started floating around more often in the 2020s. Business Insider explores how it can even ruin marriages.
Weaponized incompetence is a tactic where “one person avoids or refuses to do a task and uses their ‘incompetence’ as an excuse in order to sidestep responsibilities,” according to the Cleveland Clinic.
That ‘someone else’ almost always ends up being a woman. In a more interesting turn, this now means women are preferring other women to do their tasks instead of men. Case in point: Instacart shopping.
It starts with a seemingly innocent comment: “Is he an Instacart shopper by any chance?” and that’s all it takes for others under Lily’s video to join in.
One viewer shared, “This is why I’m upset when I get a male Instacart shopper. Everything is suddenly out of stock.” While another stated, “This is why we prefer women Instacart shoppers.”
These viewers aren’t wrong; male Instacart shoppers have recently come under fire for not doing their jobs properly when it comes to picking out groceries. In a story the Mary Sue covered, one TikToker shared the top three signs that your Instacart shopper was male.
The main argument is that they seem to think not looking hard enough for an item just means that it doesn’t exist, and therefore, they need to substitute it with something else. The bigger problem is the male Instacart shopper substituting things that make absolutely no sense.
@lilykthom I don’t play about my Chexmix #foryoupage #fyp #foryou ♬ original sound – lilykthom
The Mary Sue reached out to Lily via TikTok direct message for comment.
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