Chick Fil-A

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored," fans of fried chicken since 1960! Man oh man, both of my grandmothers knew how to fry chicken! I can still taste those crispy, moist, flavorful bird bits in the digestion-related regions of my brain!

Which is one of the reasons why I can happily forgo any fast-food chicken on the market. Something tells me that the tender loving care that should be showered on young poultry is sadly lacking in today's chain store chew shops.

There's a lot of flap-flap and squawk squawk about Chick-Fil-A in the news right now. This fast food scourge has been in my neighborhood for twenty years, at least. While trying to grab market share from formidable rivals, Chick-Fil-A absolutely boasted about its Christian mission. If you missed this, you weren't looking for a waffle fry on a Sunday.

It's no surprise to me that the idea of gay marriage, or gays themselves for that matter, is anathema to Chick-Fil-A. This is a private, family-owned company with no ties to the workings of the government (save, no doubt, hefty contributions to any and every right-wing Dominionist wacko running for dog catcher and all else). The ownership of Chick Fil-A has every right to maximize its profits in the Bible Belt by minimizing profits elsewhere. Folks, seriously. The market share of this grease bucket was built on all the Christian consumers out there who didn't have good grannies with cast-iron skillets and bricks of lard.

I have not patronized a Chick-Fil-A in two decades. On the other hand, my daughter The Spare and her friends, while as liberal-minded as they come, consider the local CFA their gustatory hangout. Well, what can I say? Both of my grannies had found the Summerlands before Spare was born. Her experience of great fried chicken is limited to our annual vacation to the Eastern Shore of Maryland.

Truthfully, I wish more businesses were as honest as Chick-Fil-A. As consumers, we ought to know how private businesses are supporting political candidates, so that we can give our ducats to the stores that think our way, and avoid the ones that don't. For instance: Do you have a store named Urban Outfitters in your local hideous blight on the landscape shopping mall? Urban Outfitters is huge around here. This is a hip eporium that sells expensive clothes that look like they come from the thrift store. Forty bucks for a tee shirt with a faded logo and tears in the sleeves. Anyway, Urban Outfitters was recently outed for its huge contributions to conservative candidates nationwide. Cynical bastards love their Third World labor pool, no doubt, and want to insure that nothing in their wardrobe need be produced in the US of A.

Last Christmas Mr. J and I bought Spare a few threads from Urban Outfitters. This was before we knew about the company's agenda. Needless to say, I'll never shop there again. Spare doesn't need to, anyway. She is perfectly capable of buying a tee shirt at the thrift store, bleaching it, and cutting holes in the sleeves. In fact, she excels at this.

To shorten a long rant, I am glad Chick-Fil-A wears its dogma on its red-and-white logo. We are in the know about the company and can make our purchase decisions based on its transparency.

I don't know about you, but if I had to give up something, I'd sure as shootin' rather it be Chick-Fil-A than the Muppets. I am totally in love with Monster.