Not-So-Happy Meals

What in the hell is wrong with people? Not just people in general (though I have questions about them as well), but certain people. You know who they are. You know the ones. The ones that do things that are just so not smart and so incredibly inexplicable that it makes you wonder how they've managed to keep themselves alive for this long. The folks over there at PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) would be some of those people. (Alicia Silverstone over there on the left? She is so not one of those people. If she keeps looking like that, she can be an axe murderer for all I care. But she's definitely not one of those.)

Again, I ask what is wrong with them? This time, their outrageous, inflammatory and "in your face" method of bringing attention to how animals (otherwise known as "food") are allegedly mistreated during the process of growing the animals in captivity until they are to the point where they become known as "delicious". I'm not denying that some of the conditions (in which animals that are raised for food live) are less than ideal, but how ideal is it in reality? I mean, overall. The animals? Yeah, they're gonna die. And we're gonna eat 'em. That alone is "bad" enough. Again, I'm not in favor of horrific conditions for these creatures, but it is kind of like making sure that executions by lethal injection are done in a completely sterile environment so that some sort of infection doesn't develop within the condemned. I'm just sayin'.

So PETA, not satisfied with the response (or lack thereof) that they receive from adults, have apparently decided to target small children with their horrific and in-your-face tactics and they've seemingly decided to use McDonald's as the outlet from which to spread their scary ass message of slaughterhouse horrors to those who enjoy McDonald's the most. The small.

Not only are their tactics abhorrent, they've targeted my favorite McDonald's crap! The McNuggets! And that's just a futile effort in and of itself, going after either McDonald's and/or the McNuggets. They're both not going anywhere. You could tell us that torturing our loved ones in a back alley is part of the McDonald's food making process and we'd probably just ask (likely with our mouths full), "What kind of torture and for how long?" We don't care. We will continue to eat McDonald's until the day that it is ultimately responsible for our own early demise due to a sedentary lifestyle and arteries clogged with trans-fat. The only regret we'll have is that we weren't able to manage one last taste of Mickey D's before the taste of sweet, sweet death.

There was an ad campaign by....I don't even remember which other fast food chain, which took aim at McNuggets with the slogan "Parts is Parts". Funny, to the point, and possibly true. I don't know and neither do you. Nor do we or anyone else even CARE. McDonald's sold a gazillion McNuggets before that commercial came out and it has continued to sell a gazillion McNuggets since that commercial came out. And it's a little ironic that I can remember "Parts is Parts" and that I LOVE me a McNugget, but I cannot for the life of me remember which other fast food chain launched that campaign. I didn't care where they found these "boneless chickens" then and I don't care where they find them now. All I care about is that I find the correct number of McNuggets in that little box when I order.

But PETA has decided to take their campaign against McNuggets WAY farther than "Parts is Parts". According to Fox News, people showing up at a McDonald's in Albany, New York found "Unhappy Meals" which were clearly supposed to represent the opposite of McDonald's iconic Happy Meal. "Inside the box they found a bloody rubber chicken, packet of ketchup blood, knife-wielding Ronald McDonald, and a tee-shirt." Yes, I would be extremely unhappy if I found that as opposed to my McNuggets. That would be a "Really Pissed Off at PETA Meal" if there ever was one.

Now, since the reporting was horrendous from both Fox News sites that I referenced (the one linked above and this one) it's unclear to me exactly HOW the patrons of McDonald's came across the Unhappy Meals by PETA. Were they substituted for their regular meals and if so, how did that happen? Were they handed out to people and some folks just thought, "Free is free. Gimme!"? I don't know, but it does support the statement "Fair and balanced" because it's fair to say that both sites had equal amounts of crap reporting on them, balancing out that crap scale just fine. Fortunately, I found everything I needed to know over there at New Jersey Newsroom. And from their website it would look to me like they had these Unhappy Meals available for one to pick up at their leisure if one so chose to do so. It also appears as if the table of Unhappy Meals was being monitored by a giant Pac Man character, though it is unclear as to why that was.

Now, all PETA claims it was doing was "...asking McDonald's to switch to controlled atmosphere killing which their own research has shown would be far less cruel for the birds," so said a one Kristina Addington, PETA Peddler (and sharp dresser!). In reply "A representative for McDonald's defended the franchise, saying it supports the use of a stunning technique that numbs its chickens before they are slaughtered." Oh good! NumbNuggets!

While I'm not FOR cruelty to animals, I'm not so thrilled about the method that PETA wants McDonald's to implement (though I AM glad that they aren't just tauting their very tired "NO MEAT" mantra). PETA's preference is "...called Controlled Atmosphere Killing (CAK), and involves slowly replacing chickens' oxygen with inert gases, slowing putting the chickens to sleep." (Wow. It sounds like Chicken Euthanasia, Michael Jackson Style!) Um, the chickens that I eat, see, their oxygen is distributed throughout their bodies which I then, as previously alluded to, eat. I don't want to be eating the equivalent of a chicken that has just been put to death in a gas chamber. I know that none of the methods are desirable (especially for the damn chicken!), but unfortunately it is what it is.

The thing is, I have the feeling that PETA could be very effective in getting something other than just free freaking publicity if they toned down their scary shock and awe methods and instead acted like reasonable human beings to get their message out there. Because I'll tell you, if there is one thing that most people will shun and dismiss it is the rantings of a crazy person. And having a life-sized, fuzzy Pac-Man creature handing out Unhappy Meals with bloody rubber chickens inside? Yeah, that will be shunned and dismissed.

Immediately.


Side note: Turns out it was Wendy's that told us "Parts is parts." I still don't care. I heart the parts.

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McNuggets are NOT an Emergency

I don't know if there's some way to fully educate the public on the appropriate uses for the 911 emergency system, but then again, I didn't think that there needed to be a lot of instruction about how it works and what it's for. It's kind of right there in the name: 911 EMERGENCY. Thus, one should call 911 if it's an emergency. The problem arises when one person's definition of what constitutes an emergency is different from another person's definition of what an emergency is. When those two interpretations differ, the people involved can always be referred to as "the one who knows what 911 is for" and "the crazy one". See if you can guess which one is which in a scenario that involved Chicken McNuggets. Wait. What?

Naturally, this took place in Flori-duh. No surprise there. But it's there that we find a one 27-year old Latreasa L. Goodman from Fort Pierce. (Why is that important? Do I need to know where she's from to know that she's unclear on the 911 concept and possibly on the McNugget concept as well?) Latreasa had gone to a McDonald's for a delicious meal of 10 Chicken McNuggets and a small fry. As the police report, available at The Smoking Gun tells the story, Ms. Goodman says that she paid for the McNuggets and was then informed that they were out of McNuggets. It was then that Ms. Goodman, wanting the McNuggets and all, wanted her money back but for some asinine reason was told that all sales were final and that she could choose something else from the menu. (Why does using the term "menu" always sound funny when it's in reference to a McDonald's?) Now, I understand the "all sales are final" concept, but if she didn't get any McNuggets, I'm hard pressed to say that the cashier sold her anything for which to constitute a sale to make final! Was this cashier working on commission or something? Why wouldn't she just give her back her money?

(By the way, while I'm kind of on Latreasa's side with the principle of the thing, I'm in no way suggesting that she should have called 911 not once, but three times. Oh, did I not mention she called about the nuggets thrice-ly? Yeah, she did. So don't get me wrong, McNuggets are good and all, but they're not "Calling-911-Three-Times-Because-They-Were-Out good".)

In all fairness, the second time that she called 911 she was disconnected and that's why she called back the third time. Of course, that doesn't justify the first two times that she called. What goes through someone's mind when they're calling 911 about a deep fried poultry product that's meant to be dipped in your choice of tasty condiments?

I'd have to imagine that the answer to that question is similar to what Latreasa told the cop. "This is an emergency. If I would had known they didn't have McNuggets, I wouldn't have given them my money, and now she wants to give me a McDouble, but I don't want one. This is an emergency." It's distressing. It's disappointing. It's frustrating. It is all of those things. It is not an emergency.

She wasn't backing down from that stance either. She maintained the entire time, right up through the cop writing her a citation and her signing it to agree to appear in court, that "This is an emergency. My McNuggets are an emergency." Again, a situation in which many adjectives could be used to describe it, but "emergency" is not one of them.

Seriously, did this chick not think of talking to the manager? Oh, wait. One of the 911 dispatchers asked her that. Her response? "She said she are the manager." She are the manager? Well then, who you be? Sweetie-pie, I think that if she really said, "I are the manager" that she probably should not be the manager, even if she "are the manager" at the time. (And I'm not apologizing for mocking those who butcher the English language. It sounds so uneducated. Oh, wait. I'm still talking about someone who called 911 because McDonald's was out of McNuggets, right? Uh-huh. Well, reaffirmation is always nice.)

I'd kind of like to know why the cashier didn't know that they were out of McNuggets in the first place as well as how a McDonald's runs out of McNuggets. They're quite popular! They're sold in over 100 countries! (I don't know why I felt the need to include that little trivia nugget. It has no purpose. Must've just been because it was a nugget.) Don't they know to stock up on those things? Always have plenty of nuggets! Always!

And I'd also like to know just a bit more about Ms. Goodman, starting with the highest grade in school that she completed (and if the number of said grade is of the double digit variety). Seriously, honeybabe, 911? Three times?! You couldn't have just come back during a different shift (without a gun!) and talked to that manager? You couldn't have gone to the McDonald's website and sent them an email? You didn't think those would work for you or what? Sadly, I'm guessing she just didn't think of them. Or wasn't able to think of them. ::::sigh:::::

Last month we had the asshat who called 911 because Burger King was out of lemonade. Now we have this woman calling 911 for not getting McNuggets. Both were in Florida and I don't think that's a coincidence. The disproportionate number of stories like these that come out of Florida compared to the rest of the country is quite disturbing. They might really be as low-functioning as I make them out to be, in which case I wouldn't know which is scarier, that they're that incompetent or that I was right. Either way, I have ten bucks that says another fast food related 911 call will be made within the next 2 months. (I have twenty bucks that says it will be made from Florida.)

Below is the audio of the three calls that she made. (It's just audio even though it looks like a video.) She's very calm for someone who is calling 911 about the non-receipt of 10 Chicken McNuggets. You'd expect the caller that sort of situation to be either a) on a sitcom, or b) screaming and panting and out of breath. I was hoping for "a", but was expecting "b", yet she was neither and was very calm and composed as well as clear and articulate in speaking. I had no trouble at all understanding everything that she said, including "she are the manager" and "my McNuggets are an emergency." Crystal clear, unfortunately.

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