Thank you, Colonel Sanders; your fried chicken and your grandfatherly looks make me feel truly loved at long last.
It’s the middle of the afternoon. The birds are singing, people are laughing, and the sun is shining (well, as much as it does in Seattle.) I’m currently in bed, blinds closed, wearing sweat pants and an undershirt thinking about how I probably won’t make it to the gym again today. Sound sad? It is. Sure, I could give you my old standby excuse (something along the lines of “I had to work ass early this morning and am, as such, wiped out, whine whine whine…”) but we all know the real reason for becoming a shut-in, and it has nothing to do with agoraphobia.
Self-hatred seems to be the driving force behind KFC‘s continued existence. First, they brought us the big ol’ bucket of chicken. Who needs an enormous bucket of deep fried chicken? Well, if your parents didn’t love you as much as they loved your younger sister and you can’t seem to break away from the blue-tinted glow of the television long enough to catch glimpse of — let alone talk to — another human being, then you do, of course. And you need it all to yourself.
Fried chicken soon gave way to chicken tenders, which I, for one, have absolutely no problem with… and neither should you. I mean, really… who needs all those pesky, messy bones? Just one more reminder that we had to murder some poor, defenseless salt-water inflated chicken just so we could have the ultimate 3-piece meal. Don’t care.
Then, one magical day in the late 2000′s, having found even the idea of boneless chicken tenders too cumbersome a sob-muffling tool (particularly when coupled with their gloriously soul-soothing yet tiresome spork-requiring sides), the thinkers at KFC made a breakthrough in broken-spirit-quelling technology so transcendent that I think only the great Patton Oswalt has managed to describe it’s deep and lasting effect on the fast food landscape:
Don't just be down. Be Double Down.
It is now 2010, and KFC has just released upon the seething self-loathing mass that is comprised by and large by my peergroup of 20-something middle Americans, the “Double Down” – basically a breadless, greasy mass of cheese, sauce, and preservatives that they are marketing as a sandwich that sounds at once abhorrent and amazingly appetizing. The picture at left shows the crispy version (there’s also a grilled, but the crispy seems to be the vastly more popular of the two, kind of like your best friend in high school and you.) I first heard of this glory of glories a few months ago through Facebook, when a vegetarian friend of mine posted a link about it to his wall in near-horror – the thought of 500+calories of pretty much nothing more than meat was to his ears absurd. I, of course, being the soulless, wallowing piece of carnivorous shit that I am, had the opposite reaction… I couldn’t wait to go out there and sink my crooked teeth into one. (In my defense, the Double Down doesn’t outweigh the competition by much in terms of nutrition facts… in fact it’s pretty much par for the fast food course.) I finally gave myself the chance yesterday, mainly because I found myself across the street from a KFC for once in my life, and also because I hadn’t really eaten anything yet and was pretty hungry, so… why not, right?
I ordered the grilled version (I’m supposed to be on a diet, after all) and received it a disheartening 30 or so seconds after placing the order from the chuckling man at the drive through window. I don’t know why he was chuckling – he’d probably just heard the punchline to a joke (maybe something involving fat people eating meat-wiches, I don’t know. It was probably about me. It’s fine. I would have laughed if somebody had ordered it too.) I drove off and in the glorious anonymity of my driver’s seat unsheathed the greasy beast. At first bite the cheese was still cold and unmelted, but the grilled chicken had a smokey fake-grilled flavor all but absent from my life at present thanks to my patio-less city apartment. The sauce was sloppy and only moderately flavorful — some sort of mock-peppery mayo based orangey goop that, paired with the cheese and lack of bread/breading caused the sandwich to all but fall apart before I was even halfway finished with it.
Was it worth it? No. Even if I was looking for a reason to hate myself more (and believe me, I don’t need one,) the Double Down just wasn’t pleasurable enough to be a guilty pleasure. If I had just found out that my cat had earlier in the day eaten a large portion my favorite Star Wars Lego Millennium Falcon collector’s set and subsequently died from internal bleeding, I don’t think this sandwich would have done much more than create a prolonged queasiness that could only be replicated by eating a bagful of greasy Dick’s (which I did today… oops.)
In short, if you’re feeling like the miserable piece of crap that you most likely are and you want a meal that matches up with that self-image, stick with the “failure pile in a sadness bowl.” The Double Down just doesn’t live up to its own name.
