“I gave up cigarettes for my New Year’s resolution, but it didn’t give up smoking” – Blues Brothers
When I was a kid there was a chicken stand in the country known as Kentucky Fried Chicken. I used to love going there, mainly because I grew up in a Mayberry type of town. We didn’t have fast-food restaurants. Back in those days, Interstate 10 almost went from coast to coast. There were a few breaks. One of those breaks in I-10 was between my town and Baton Rouge. Therefore, Baton Rouge wasn’t the 25-minute drive it is today, it was more like 50 minutes. It was were my parents would do most of the back-to-school shopping. As a kid, I didn’t care much about school shopping. But I sure did love going to Baton Rouge. Why? They had places like McDonalds, Burger King and, yes, Kentucky Fried Chicken. I remember these places as being a real treat. We would only have this once or twice a year. Somewhere along the line, Kentucky Fried Chicken ceased to exist, they started calling it KFC. They tried to sell it down the street by saying kids like to nick everything and shorten it to initials, kind of like BFF. But I got news for you folks, KFC has been around for longer than BFF, and much longer than texting. You might ask yourself why a company with such lucrative branding connected to it change its name. I’ll tell you why. It had the word “fried” in it. Once we decided to become health-conscious as a nation, we couldn’t eat fried food anymore. But you know what we could eat? KFC. Before you start scratching your head, let me help you out. Yeah, we’re that dumb. I told you that to tell you this. KFC is at it again. Here’s why. We’re a nation of dreamers. Hell, we’re Americans, we think anything is possible. You can’t tell us no. We don’t accept no. We want what we want, how we want it and when we want it. And we want it in large quantities. Why? Cause we’re Americans, that’s why. I said it before and I’ll say it again. We love to eat things with total impunity. Tell us what we can eat in unlimited quantities. That’s what we go for. And that’s what Atkins has been selling for years. Have all the bacon you want. Have all the fat you want. Eat protein til you can’t take a dump. We love it. We love Atkins because he tells us what we want to hear. He told us that until his own arteries clogged up and killed him. But you know what? It doesn’t stop us Americans. Now Kentucky Fried Chicken (oh, I’m sorry, KFC) is stealing a page from the Atkins playbook with their new menu item, the KFC Double Down.
Hell, KFC is no dummy. They use a term commonly associated with gambling, yet another addiction of Americans. And we can’t figure out why Europe hates us. For you uninitiated with the Double Down, let me tell you what’s in it. By the way, I’m not making this up. On the bottom you have a deep-fried piece of chicken, followed by cheese, the Colonel’s special sauce, bacon, then another deep-fried piece of chicken. I want to repeat, what you just read is not a typo. This is the actual dish.
The company is banking on this product so much that they’re paying college girls to wear “Double Down” logos on their ass, like Juicy Couture and Pink Couture.
