1. A new brown thing you’ll totally eat Hi. We’re KFC. And, it’s become abundantly clear that you sad bastards will eat literally anything that we can find, photograph, and shit into a little plastic coffin. Believe me, we know. Because, for years now, we’ve been testing you. Aggressively. Time and again. Through a mind-boggling series of product releases that call to mind Europe’s inexorable slide into the Second World War—with each new development bringing something more unfathomable, disturbing, and unspeakably inhumane. But, just to be dead honest, it stopped being fun for us a long time ago; you guys have been like the Neville Chamberlains of dignified food. At a certain point, we realized you didn’t even need to be sold on this inedible dreck. Seriously. It became surreal—like you couldn’t stop hitting yourself with your own hand. Only that hand happened to be clutching a glistening piece of fried bird like it was a pontoon on the last chopper out of Saigon. The game really changed on the day we realized you wouldn’t blink twice at the idea of a junior high dropout serving you breaded chicken, jug gravy, frozen corn, and a rudimentary ecru paste of modified potato starches and salted oil—all in the same fucking death-black wading pool. You’d eat that. On purpose. With a large Mountain Dew and a fucking “parfait.” Yeah, that was when we had to admit that our once-rewarding experiment on the limits of human despair was no longer even a sporting challenge. It became more like—what?— shooting diabetic fish in a barrel. Or, I guess, more appropriately, a “bucket.” (Yes, we’re the same company that first made American adults like your grandparents feel entirely comfortable feeding their family out of a greasily translucent cardboard bucket. High five.) So, you know what? Fuck it. Let’s go for broke. Go out on a high note, y’know? Here’s…this. This…thing. Which is…food. Of a kind. Shit, we’re not even sure what to call it. Internally, we’ve been banging around “the new brown thing.” Although, that’s actually what we call any new atrocity we’ve dreamed up that we’re pretty positive you’ll buy five at a time and eat alone in your Pinto while listening to talk radio and crying. But, for what it’s worth, this unit’s actually been an interesting ride from a process standpoint. We told our R&D boys they could come up with basically anything they wanted—as long as it could be thrown together from existing ingredients, cost less than 40 cents to make, and looked enough like dog shit that impressionable lardbutts like you would get a raging food boner the first time its commercial ran on whatever basic cable reality show keeps you from killing yourself for another week. And, yes, if it’s not already clear, we think this new brown thing feels like another big-titted hit for Team Colonel. So, you know. Go nuts. Buy one. Hell, buy forty. Ask for “the scabby-looking new brown thing that shiny, out-of-breath people in sweatpants and UGG boots who look pretty much like me keep ordering.” Actually, it’d be awesome if you’d say it exactly like that. Because the counter kids would sure get a kick out of it. (As your almost-daily visits may have shown you, these youngsters are not the sharpest knives in the drawer. And, frankly, given their lack of benefits and likely-permanent Original Recipe odor, they could really use a good laugh) Thing is, you’re already pretty into this new brown thing, aren’t you? Sure, you are. It’s that cadaver-colored cheese product and that bacon-flavored “hickory striplette” and that engagingly pus-like corn starch sauce, right? Totally. And, you see that outside part? Yeah. That definitely looks like fried chicken or something. And, if memory serves, fried chicken or something are two of your favorite foods. Just after “anything not made of metal or glass that I can squeeze, fold, roll, fellate, or otherwise manipulate into a shape that can be accommodated by my gaping maw.” But, if you’re not into it? Eh. You will be. Eventually. Some night when you’re all drunk on peach schnapps and working up an appetite from jerking it to late 80s Penney’s catalogs. You’ll crave you some brown. And that’s fine with us. And if you don’t? Well, really, who cares? We’ll be fine. We know our customers; those fucking bowls didn’t get famous by themselves. So, thanks. And, seriously: enjoy the new brown thing. But, thanks, also for whatever brought you to this point in life. Because, the truth is, we simply couldn’t do our jobs as well as we do without knowing folks like you will devour literally anything we make.

    A new brown thing you’ll totally eat

    Hi. We’re KFC.

    And, it’s become abundantly clear that you sad bastards will eat literally anything that we can find, photograph, and shit into a little plastic coffin.

    Believe me, we know. Because, for years now, we’ve been testing you. Aggressively. Time and again. Through a mind-boggling series of product releases that call to mind Europe’s inexorable slide into the Second World War—with each new development bringing something more unfathomable, disturbing, and unspeakably inhumane.

    But, just to be dead honest, it stopped being fun for us a long time ago; you guys have been like the Neville Chamberlains of dignified food. At a certain point, we realized you didn’t even need to be sold on this inedible dreck.

    Seriously. It became surreal—like you couldn’t stop hitting yourself with your own hand. Only that hand happened to be clutching a glistening piece of fried bird like it was a pontoon on the last chopper out of Saigon.

    The game really changed on the day we realized you wouldn’t blink twice at the idea of a junior high dropout serving you breaded chicken, jug gravy, frozen corn, and a rudimentary ecru paste of modified potato starches and salted oil—all in the same fucking death-black wading pool. You’d eat that. On purpose. With a large Mountain Dew and a fucking “parfait.”

    Yeah, that was when we had to admit that our once-rewarding experiment on the limits of human despair was no longer even a sporting challenge.

    It became more like—what?— shooting diabetic fish in a barrel. Or, I guess, more appropriately, a “bucket.”

    (Yes, we’re the same company that first made American adults like your grandparents feel entirely comfortable feeding their family out of a greasily translucent cardboard bucket. High five.)

    So, you know what? Fuck it. Let’s go for broke. Go out on a high note, y’know?

    Here’s…this. This…thing. Which is…food. Of a kind.

    Shit, we’re not even sure what to call it. Internally, we’ve been banging around “the new brown thing.” Although, that’s actually what we call any new atrocity we’ve dreamed up that we’re pretty positive you’ll buy five at a time and eat alone in your Pinto while listening to talk radio and crying.

    But, for what it’s worth, this unit’s actually been an interesting ride from a process standpoint. We told our R&D boys they could come up with basically anything they wanted—as long as it could be thrown together from existing ingredients, cost less than 40 cents to make, and looked enough like dog shit that impressionable lardbutts like you would get a raging food boner the first time its commercial ran on whatever basic cable reality show keeps you from killing yourself for another week.

    And, yes, if it’s not already clear, we think this new brown thing feels like another big-titted hit for Team Colonel.

    So, you know. Go nuts. Buy one. Hell, buy forty.

    Ask for “the scabby-looking new brown thing that shiny, out-of-breath people in sweatpants and UGG boots who look pretty much like me keep ordering.” Actually, it’d be awesome if you’d say it exactly like that. Because the counter kids would sure get a kick out of it.

    (As your almost-daily visits may have shown you, these youngsters are not the sharpest knives in the drawer. And, frankly, given their lack of benefits and likely-permanent Original Recipe odor, they could really use a good laugh)

    Thing is, you’re already pretty into this new brown thing, aren’t you? Sure, you are.

    It’s that cadaver-colored cheese product and that bacon-flavored “hickory striplette” and that engagingly pus-like corn starch sauce, right? Totally.

    And, you see that outside part? Yeah. That definitely looks like fried chicken or something.

    And, if memory serves, fried chicken or something are two of your favorite foods. Just after “anything not made of metal or glass that I can squeeze, fold, roll, fellate, or otherwise manipulate into a shape that can be accommodated by my gaping maw.”

    But, if you’re not into it? Eh. You will be. Eventually. Some night when you’re all drunk on peach schnapps and working up an appetite from jerking it to late 80s Penney’s catalogs. You’ll crave you some brown. And that’s fine with us.

    And if you don’t? Well, really, who cares? We’ll be fine. We know our customers; those fucking bowls didn’t get famous by themselves.

    So, thanks. And, seriously: enjoy the new brown thing. But, thanks, also for whatever brought you to this point in life.

    Because, the truth is, we simply couldn’t do our jobs as well as we do without knowing folks like you will devour literally anything we make.

And, then, you were all...

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    this? Probably. too
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