I'm not talking about the problem of living for another day, although I'm pretty sure the Double Down, a fanciful bread-free extension on the very concept of sandwiches, will destroy all livers and infarct any tissues unlucky enough to encounter its giant lab-engineered polysaturates. I'm talking about my blocked-up blog, which is getting less action these days than Mozart (because he's dead, you see). In a finely-honed turn of irony, I figured that the act of ordering and eating one of these monsters would inspire me to write once more.
It turns out that it's harder to get a shitty sandwich in my town than I had anticipated.
First off, know that KFC's Double Down Sandwich is not really a sandwich at all. The Double Down is a stack of meat, salt and dairy: two chicken breasts guarding several slices of bacon and melted cheese. The fat and calorie counts are lower than you'd expect, but I believe that KFC employs CERN to fold additional crap into higher dimensions. I don't think it's even intended as a legitimate product. It's there to grab people's attention with the sheer salty chutzpah of its breadlessness. It is meant to provoke, to anger, to inspire debate, to spike the blogosphere's coffee. The Double Down Sandwich is basically the insult comedy of fast food.
The problem is, there are no KFC's in the downtown area, which is where I live. They surround the city's perimeter like a fairy ring, springing up wherever pimply masses of people need a triglyceride fix to make the trek from Walmart to Best Buy. But anywhere close by? Anywhere I could stop on my way home from work? No.
So I decided to call the nearest outlet and order a sandwich for delivery. I felt like I was ordering a cement mixer to pull up to my window and upend a liquid ton of gravy into my mouth. But when I looked up the delivery number online, I realized that KFC was advertising everything but the Double Down. The Big Fresh Sandwich, sure. The Wrapstar (A Taste Explosion!). The Boneless Original Recipe. But no Double Down.
Canada, I thought, first no Hulu. Now no Double Down. It was clear that KFC Canada had a whole different sales strategy. Fresh? Wraps? But I thought I'd call anyway.
The woman on the other end of the phone had a hesitant tone in her voice, like she wasn't that familiar with phone technology.
- Hello, K, um, KFC, can I, help? You?
-Hi, do you carry the Double Down Sandwich?
-The Double wuh?
Two things: One, she actually said "wuh". Two, in 2006, 87% of Canadian households subscribed to cable or satellite television. With the market saturation of flat-screen TVs and the preponderance of digital cable services, that percentage has probably increased to something like 92-95%. Everyone watches cable, is what I'm saying. And basic Canadian cable is American television. That's an oversimplification, but if you watch cable in Canada, you watch American television. So by that logic, everyone has seen approximately 5 billion ads for the KFC Double Down.
This person, who worked at a KFC, who operated with KFC imprinted on the screen of her perceptions, who had a 95% chance of having seen an ad for this stupid wackadoo sandwich, had somehow failed to pick up on it.
-The Double Down Sandwich? It's got two chicken breasts instead of a bun? I was now explaining a KFC product to one of their employees, and acutely aware of how ridiculous I was sounding. It's available in the States.
- Oh, we can't sell you things from the States. And then she started laughing. She was laughing at me because she thought I was asking her to ship a sandwich up from the States.
One of the worst things about dealing with phenomenally stupid people is that they are always one step ahead of you in the stupid domain. You can't out-stupid a stupid person. You can't think around their brainlessness. They're too smart for that. But they only thing they're smart at is being really fucking stupid.
- Yes, I know, I said, hoping there was somewhere I could go that wouldn't pull my entire night into the tiger trap of stupid I'd stepped on. I was just saying it's available in the United States. That's how I know about it.
- But we can't get things from the States, sir. She started giggling again.
At that point the only way to salvage the call was to switch gears and start ordering. But then the entire kitchen would be making a bucket of chicken for the idiot who wanted them to order something from the States. And the driver would be grinning as he handed my food over to the total douche who thought KFC delivered sandwiches to other countries. So I just yelped out "Okay bye!" and got off the phone.
And then Schmutzie made some chicken wings from the freezer. And they were damn tasty.
17 comments:
Oh holy crap. That was far funnier than ever eating the fucking thing could be. That was... dare I say it... epic.
I want one. Now more than ever.
If it would make you feel better (it won't) I will ship you one from California. But it will hurt my heart (arteries) just to be ordering one. And this was good enough without you having eaten the sandwich, so I take back my offer.
I imagine a person would throw up a little just watching someone else eat one from the looks of that photo. It's punch you in the face nasty and I'm kinda glad you all aren't being subjected to it. *hork*
Hmm. There's a KFC not far. Could this stir me to revive my blog?
...
No.
I'm a newcomer to your blog, so first: hello!
I'm glad (for your heart's sake) that you didn't get the "sandwich" in the end. Yikes. Although the conversation alone was probably hard enough on your health.
And speaking of heartburn, how's Twilight going? Those were the first posts of yours I read and since I suffered through the whole series on audiobook (why?) it's gratifying to see them artfully trashed.
Christine - Perhaps the KFC Double Down is the Twilight of fast food?
Reminds me of the a 17-yr-old sales clerk who patiently told our coworker that Chapters doesn't sell maps of Cairo because "there are no maps of Egypt".
Well, everybody just orients themselves by the pyramids there. "Hey, is this Cheops? No? Well, I must have ended up somewhere else then".
Your blog posts make my day. There isn't one among us who hasn't been in your place, trying to extractsome measure of intelligent interaction from such an encounter. This made me laugh out loud. Thank you!
YAAAAAAAY. You have returned.
Even in my more dissolute food days, I could not eat KFC. I had this friend who kept making me go to KFC and it made me violently ill. Just the fumes off a KFC can cause me to become sick.
But interesting international fact: When guerillas, rebels, Marxist factions, etc. first take violent political action, they *always* blow up a KFC. KFC stands for America. It's like the Twin Towers of the developing world.
So I think you need to get one of those sandwiches and blow it up.
Here's some evidence for my claim:
First they blow up the embassy, then they blow up the KFC:
http://bit.ly/9wTz0k
400 strong mob attacks a KFC in India:
http://bit.ly/9AvGXE
KFC attacked in Indonesia as protest over Gaza:
http://bit.ly/c8hnyN
How hard would it be for them to just take two hunks of death that they'd normally throw between buns, place cheese and bacon between them, then deliver them in some sort of soggy paper-like wrap to your doorstep? I mean, seriously. Where's the innovation? Where's the outside-the-box thinking? Where's the ability to adapt and overcome?
It's lack of effort of this caliber that led to the fall of Rome. It's true. Look it up.
"The insult comedy of fast food" is just brilliant. I'm going back to read it all over again.
I read a post recently in which someone described it as "chickeny".
Chickeny. Imagine that.
Maybe the solution to all your problems is to not post about Twilight? Even if it IS denigrating, you are STILL talking about Twilight. Just sayin'.
Plus, I'm drunk.
I am so glad the nearest KFC to me is in Poland.
I've heard they are considering changing the name of the double down to, "Go Fuck Yourself, Heart"
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