The Curse Of A Poor Childhood Try as I might, I cannot escape the roots of my suburban, 80's upbringing (as evidenced by my encyclopedic knowledge of now ironic cartoons and inability to multiply 7 by 8). Because of this upbringing there lurks, deep in my heart, a secret longing which rears its ugly head like a culinary loch ness monster. The need for fast food. In spite of the way this will end up sounding I'm not vociferously against fast food in a "Fast Food Nation", those bastards are making our children bloated and dead kind of a way. It's pretty much a simple matter of taste. I'd like a real hamburger thank you. My true weakness shines however, when it comes to that glorious combination of breakfast and that unholy bitch goddess of morning mealtry-McDonalds. What is it that makes those little bastard breakfast sandwiches grip my heart and soul so tightly, forcing my body to completely ignore what I'd rather have, what I really need, or what will help me live long enough to see the release of X-Men 3? At this point I have given up and simply assume they're like pants. I have no idea how they work, I just know I need them. And so it was that I made my annual trip to that gustatory vortex and made a decision that will change my life forever. I got the fucking McGriddle. For those of you not in the know about this "thing", the McGriddle is basically your standard breakfast sandwich; with a twist. Instead of being contained within a biscuit or english muffin, they are flanked, top and bottom, by mini-pancakes (the syrup is baked right in!). I'm sure that many of you immediately see this as an idea of the not good variety. For those of us that find the concept quite tasty it's just too difficult to explain. So I went with the new. McDonalds! New! I was filled with girlish glee at the delicious possibilities. And I paid the price. I suppose I should have known better as I gazed around the place and was assaulted by numerous, unsettling advertisements for all the "new" things they wanted me to try. Chicken McNuggets? Now with white meat! In the course of my life I've had quite a few McNuggets and I don't ever recall them being dark meat. Which kind of made we wonder, just what is it exactly that I have been shoveling hundreds of units of into my talk hole for the last several decades? Since it was breakfast time, they also wanted to point out to me that their orange juice has a "new fresh taste". This doesn't exactly inspire confidence in their juice based drinks. What are they doing to give it this "fresh taste"? If they were using better oranges or a new fresh-saving process wouldn't they tout that instead? One has to imagine that they have created a man-made freshening ingredient in their labs which even now is transmuting my insides into something far from human. All this was confirmed when I bit into the newest of new. The pride of the future breakfast flagship. It was positively vile. I don't mean, 'this isn't really what I expected' or 'I don't much care for this flavor', it was outright gut churningly bad. The pancakes exploded with a faux syrup flavor that coated the inside of my mouth and made the very air I was breathing taste like sugar infused corn goo. The sandwich itself literally melted in my mouth, each component lost before it even existed as a flavor. Forcing me to hold in my mouth a slurry of sausage, egg, cheese, and pancake. As I chucked the sandwich of the damned into my garbage can I took an oath to the heavens above to avoid the new. Stick with the old. Even, God help me, stay the hell away from fast food. Then my body remembered it had been months since I've been to a KFC.
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