Mediocre Fred's Mediocre Blog (Ret.)

Getting Adjusted to My New Home

Hello, friends! I was hoping to inaugurate my new home with one of my famous food reviews, and I thought that McDonald's new Chicken Selects were as good a place as any to start. Veterans of the McNugget experience are undoubtedly excited by the concept of recognizable chicken at the Golden Arches. (By the same spelling principle behind "cheez" and "krab," I always felt that McDonald's should have called theirs "Chykkin McNugitz.") And I looked forward to trying these new creations, and perhaps marveling a bit at the fact that McDonald's has become so pretentious that what would once have been "Chicken McStrips" are now called "Selects." I was prepared to have a grand old time.

My aspirations were dashed, however, when I saw the new series of commercials designed to promote said Selects. If you live in a home with a television, you've probably seen them. The tagline is "Prepare to defend your chicken." Each commercial features a youngish person who makes threatening hand motions and carries on at length in the ever-popular Major Attitude dialect about the dangers of coming between this person and his or her Selects. Physical violence is not explicitly threatened, but the implication hangs heavy in the air. At first I found these commercials off-putting -- who would want to spend time with these people, anyhow? -- but not overly worrisome.

Then I began seeing them more frequently, and I noticed something very disturbing: In all of the commercials, the holder of the Selects is alone. No one else is in the same room. And yet, our protagonist continues to make menacing pronouncements as if someone else was actually in the vicinity. In some cases, the Select-eater actually mentions these imaginary tormentors by name. And none of these commercials appear to be set in a mental institution, so we can probably presume that these people were once, by some objective measure, considered sane.

So what are we to conclude here? As far as I can tell, the meta-message of these commercials is: "Eating Chicken Selects will make you paranoid and cause you to hallucinate." Is this supposed to encourage people to buy Chicken Selects? Instead of being charged up with desire for the product, I'm filled with questions. Has Mad Cow disease spread to chicken? Do the Selects come with a lithium dipping sauce? Is McDonald's determined to prove that they can come up with even dumber ad campaigns than Burger King? (Speaking of Burger King, does anyone know the whereabouts of the Subservient Chicken? I'd like to bring him in for questioning.)

So as a result of these commercials, I won't be trying Chicken Selects any time soon. Any of you loyal readers who have tried them and would like to let me know how they taste, feel free to leave a note in the comments.

Since I don't have a review for you, instead I'd like to take a moment to praise the fine summer experience I had yesterday. Papa Shaft and I hit the baseball diamond, as we often do, only this time we played longer than we have in a while. I've been on a bit of a losing streak in this games lately, but yesterday I knew I wasn't going to lose. Ever have one of those days where you just go in knowing you're going to prevail? It was that kind of day for me. Even when my curveball wasn't breaking right, even when I had to take off my glasses because the sweat was running down from my forehead and ruining my vision, I knew I'd be all right.

I kept Papa in check in the first inning, and went wild with the bat in the bottom of the inning. I wasn't going to be stopped. Papa, to his great credit, hung in and rallied, and we went into the bottom of the last inning with him ahead, 24-20. (By this point we were dashing off to the water fountain every half-inning and taking long pauses in between at-bats. We both had that bone-weary feeling that comes along in a hard-fought game.) Papa had little control left, and I had just enough bat strength left to keep myself alive. He hung in, however, and he coaxed a pop-up out of me that left me one out from defeat, still trailing by three.

Suddenly, I looked up and realized it was twilight, and that even if we'd wanted to go on, we couldn't have played further innings, because we wouldn't have been able to see the ball. It's been a long time since I played until dusk, and it was a good feeling to be out there. I stroked a couple hits, got within a run, and Papa's control finally gave out. He wound up walking in the tying and winning runs. The light was almost gone now, and the minute the game ended we both collapsed in the grass. Just like old times. When I was a kid, I used to make a habit of playing ball in summer evenings until we couldn't see any more, and it felt great to do it again. It was truly, finally summer at last. And while it's true that I can't bend over without grunting today, it's as much a sweet reminder as a nagging injury.

That's all for today. See you tomorrow!

Posted by Fred at August 30, 2004 10:20 PM