Do NOT Eat the KFC Double Down

When Franklin Delano Roosevelt said that we have nothing to fear but fear itself, he obviously did not live in a world where an acceptable substitute for bread in a bacon and cheese sandwich is fried chicken. Today, I had such a monstrosity for lunch. Motivated by morbid curiosity and reckless abandon with the natural flow of my arteries, I went to KFC and ordered this so-called "sandwich".

My Double Down "sandwich" alone was a whopping 540 calories, 32 grams of fat, and 1380 milligrams of sodium. But, since I ordered the combo meal, I also received some potato wedges and a medium Dr. Pepper, for a grand total of 1080 calories, 45 grams of fat, and 2190 milligrams of sodium, which is more than half the daily recommended amount of calories, about 2/3 of the daily recommended amount of fat, and 210 milligrams shy of an entire day's recommended serving of sodium (values taken, respectively, from KFC's website and from the USDA website).

I cannot remember the last time I had a meal as gross as my Double Down combo meal. I was somewhat disappointed not to immediately drop dead of a heart attack by merely gazing upon its grim visage, and equal surprised my heart didn't stop after the first bite. In fact, my heart was much less disturbed by the experience than my stomach, and, when it comes to the stomach, the KFC Double Down is the gift that keeps on giving.

For the rest of the afternoon, my stomach was a quivering mass of unrest, with constant burping reminding me of the fowl abomination I had ingested as it attempted to escape its acidic tomb. As a personal apology to my stomach, for dinner I ate merely steamed rice and boiled vegetables, hoping that this peace offering would be enough to appease my stomach into making the Double Down's passage into the watery beyond as easy as possible.

Do NOT eat the KFC Double Down. There is no need to challenge yourself against this ghoulish hellbeast. This is no challenge to your masculinity or some childish dare to tempt you into making the same mistake I have. For your sake, I beg you: eat something else.

Death Be Ye Not Proud

With Halloween fast approaching, I've been contemplating humanity's obsession with death. Regardless of the era, culture, or ethnicity, part of what makes us human is our ability to ponder future states of affairs. Rather than simply living on base instinct that drives our day-to-day decision making processes, human beings are capable of reason, and, as such, have often wondered what really happens when we shuffle off this mortal coil, so to speak.

Some cultures employ a shadowy agent of the grave, who comes and gathers or transports souls to the world beyond. Some stipulate a resurrection, whether in a positive light, such as the Christian heaven or the Hindu reincarnation, others in a more ghoulish light, such as vampirism or zombification. Some believe that there is no life beyond this life and that when we die we simply cease to exist.

In many ways, death is the driving force of life. The thought that our time is short makes us accomplish more, in the hopes that our dreams will be fulfilled before we are dust. It seems that without death, life would be fairly meaningless. Death and life have a sort of co-eternally necessary descriptory nature, similar to light and dark, cold and hot, or right and wrong. All of these words require at least knowledge of the other word in order to be fully understood. It would make no sense to say that it is dark if we didn't know it could be other than dark, and cold is not something we can fully understand if we've never felt heat. To say that it was right to do something would mean nothing if there were not things that it would have been wrong to do.

In an odd way, death teaches us a lot about what life means. There are few things as formative in the life of a child as realizing for the first time that nothing lives forever. Death can be a comfort for some, while others struggle to delay it for as long as possible. And yet, ultimately, death becomes the great equalizer: no matter your social status, no matter your ethnicity, no matter how beloved you are, no matter how many people despise you, no matter whether or not you've lived a "good" life, death claims us all, from the mightiest emperor to the lowliest beggar on earth. When it comes, the best you can hope for is a chance to say goodbye and look back on your life without too many regrets.

"The Promised Land always lies on the other side of a wilderness."