Well, chalk this one up in the "completely off-topic" column, because this has nothing to do with American politics or video games. However, it does have everything to do with American culture.
Exhibit A: KFC's Double Down
Yes, I did purchase this thing with my own money from the KFC out on Eastern Avenue (which I'm quickly coming to realize is the shittiest of KFCs.) This picture has not been edited, the sandwich was indeed that grey and sloppy looking. Nonetheless, with a great expense of mental willpower, I forced myself to eat it.
Good lord in Heaven, I almost died halfway through the first bite. It was horrific. The chicken was dry and tasted like old people (for reference, like soap and dust), the cheese was not melted or, I assume, real, and the bacon even failed to pique my eternal love for the pork product of choice. And I don't even know what "Colonel Sauce" is made of, but I know it is nauseating and surprisingly oily. I mean, where did they get the ingredients for this sauce, the Gulf of Mexico? (Bazinga.)
I know, that was a very long walk to a joke that really isn't funny or tasteful, but back on topic, why did I eat this atrocious sandwich. And in case you don't believe me, I did eat the majority of this sandwich.
Why did I eat it? It's not because it seemed remotely appetizing, because this sandwich has disgusted me from the moment I first saw it on the Huffington Post. No, I ate this sandwich because of the idea behind it.
Because in America we don't settle for the minimum or even the perfectly acceptable. As if bacon, cheese, and Thousand Island Dressing (Maybe?) sandwiches were not already enormously unhealthy, one of the greatest American industries saw fit to innovate where others simply accepted the status quo, adding another meat where bread would be the norm. And consider the rest of American wonders from the past century! The Snuggie for example. Because I was truly angry that I couldn't just wear my blanket everywhere. Or the iPod. Because it does freaking everything.
Because in America, excess is the only way. There is no moderation, there is no consideration of consequences, there is no self-respect. We live in a society based on getting everything all at once by any methods possible. That's why our department stores are measured in football fields, our waistlines in feet, and our national debt in trillions. It's easy to blame Wal-Mart commercialism on economic hardship, obesity on fast food companies, and our national debt on nearly a decade of mishandling by a presidential administration that believed two separate wars ,both half a world away, were feasible ideas, but the underlying root of this problem, the real meat of this shit sandwich with Colonel Sauce comes from a deep ingrained idea of entitlement, that the rest of the world is simply hear to serve America's pleasures and our only purpose in life is to consume to our heart's content. There's just this belief that if there is something (aside from useful things like social programs) out there, we must have it, but we must have it to the extreme! And this sense of entitlement will push our great country further and further into a great decline until there is a fundamental cultural shift in the American mentality.
Until we embrace the understanding that we are not the world, that all of the people of the world are in this together, and that the people of the world must all support each other, then our country will be pulled further down by the weight of our ego and our abdomens. One day, in order for the United States to flourish once again, we will have to lose this mentality, the mentality that causes both sandwiches with chicken for bread and wars in countries that we've only partially noticed when looking over the world map. But who knows how long that will take...
Until then though, enjoy a delicious "Pancake Stacker" with cheesecake fillings and candied fruit and sides of hash browns, eggs, and meat; only 1250 calories, only for a limited time, and only at IHOP!
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