Wendy, you're a whore and a tease.

While I wait for Nick to send me the pictures of my Memorial Day cookout (soon to be featured here as "4th of July Cookout" because, if nothing else, we believe in vérité), here's a quick hitter.

Pretty soon, you're going to be hearing all about the boneless wings at Wendy's. Man, I can already hear those ads with "Sweet Home Alabama" cranked in the background, because nothing screams secessionist Southern heritage like a piece of deep-fried mystery chicken. OK, so KFC already did that, big deal. It wouldn't be the only recycled thing Wendy's putting out there.

Their "boneless" "chicken" "wings," for instance.

For $3.99, you get 8 of these sad little fuckers, all dressed up in whatever sauce they had laying around the test kitchen on the fateful day that these disgraces were brought into their horrifying existence. Guess what? THEY'RE CHICKEN NUGGETS DROPPED IN SOME SAUCE. So if I can get 5 nuggets for $0.99, what does my extra $3 buy me? Best I can tell: 3 more nuggets, some sauce that tastes like I sweated it out after a chili cook-off, and a plastic box.

What is traditionally known as a "boneless" chicken wing is a deep-fried breast tenderloin, not to be confused with a chicken tender (which can be any part of the breast meat) or chicken finger (which can actually be cut from any part of the chicken). The tender or finger can actually even be ground or processed chicken, like what you'd find in a chicken nugget. The nugget, however, is not a tenderloin, which in turn means it also is not a "boneless" chicken wing.

So you can understand my outrage when I opened up a shitty box of chicken nuggets with a terribly bitter and mildly spicy (Wendy's marketers call that "bold") sauce. For half the price, I could have 10 nuggets and douse them in my choice of elegant hot sauces at home.

This last part is for you Wendy. You fucking bitch. You know how much I love chicken wings. You know that they're probably my favorite food. I trusted you and you blatantly betrayed that trust. How can I ever take you seriously again? You're a lying, manipulating, conniving whore, and I can't live like this anymore. Get out of my life.

For Shame...

I am a terrible person.

Well, I feel terrible at least. Here's the deal: I've been working on a big project at work for the last 2-3 weeks and it's required me to be in the office almost every day. My office is 100 miles from my house, so I usually get to work from home 2-3 days a week. Just not these weeks. 200 miles of commute means I have to pack life in around the edges, so I don't have time to cook, and I don't have time for meals at fancy restaurants. Most of my meals have been handed to me through my car window for most of the month, and it's finally beginning to take its toll.

I have explored pretty much every I-70 exit's food possibilities between Columbus and Dayton. Tim Horton's on Hilliard-Rome Road (just past the west outerbelt in Franklin County) is great for the Bagel B.E.L.T. sandwich and a cup of coffee in the morning. The McDonald's on US42 in London consistently forgets my hash browns. There's a Hardee's in Springfield that has almost made my heart stop. The Burger King in Huber Heights has the worst fries I've ever tasted. The Wendy's on Hoke Rd. in Englewood has actually handed me an entire bag of food that was *almost* what I ordered. But I keep going back to these places (and all the other fast-food joints that litter the landscape) because my work life is encroaching heavily on my social life.

Hopefully things will return to normal soon. I feel awful. My liver is begging me for forgiveness. I respond by drowning it with alcohol once I get back to Columbus. I have probably consumed enough sodium in the last year from eating fast food to last me for the next decade. Not to mention that I am not as svelte as I once was as a young man.

I should probably go on a diet of shredded newspapers and wasabi to counteract this egregious sin I've committed against my body, but I think I'll settle for another Beef & Cheddar with curly fries and admit that the situation is hopeless as long as I live like a nomad.