no reason to go on

Awful news, everybody. The Chick-fil-a cows are gone. My beloved Chick-fil-a cows have been replaced by a garish, horrific Fanta billboard. I didn't even have a chance to say goodbye, let alone steal them and make them mine forever. Life is so fleeting.

I meen bizness

I went back to Candler for Easter, and as usual, the family made their Saturday pilgrimage to the South Asheville Chick-fil-a for Saturday lunch. We were sitting there, finishing up a delightful array of chicken products and waffle fries when my dad said, “I don’t get that advertisement hanging from the wall.” (or something like that; since he is very detail-oriented I don’t want to get sued if he didn’t say those exact words)

What was hanging from the wall was one of the infamous Chick-fil-a cows with a banner that said “Eat Chicken Q1 through Q4,” except with the zany misspelled words that are the unfortunate trademark of the Chick-fil-a cow. We told Dad it had to do with corporate lingo—Q standing for “quarter”, which is a unit of time of three months. Here, I’ll use it in a sentence: “You better do better in Q2 or you won’t be here in Q3, or in other words, if I don’t see improvement between April and June over your performance between January and March then by July you may not be here. But probably more like August because it takes people half of the next quarter to figure out what went on in the previous quarter.” Oops, that was two sentences.

Anyways, everybody agreed that if the cows are speaking in corporate lingo now, then they really should be spelling correctly. I know that I harp on this and harp on this to the point of obsession, but I just can’t tell you how much it bothers me. These cows have gone out and found business clothes, learned corporate lingo that even my dad doesn’t know, and yet they still can’t use spell check? That’s just not endearing, Chick-fil-a. At this point they stop being darling animals begging us not to eat them in their own befuddled way as much as they become lazy animals that just don’t try hard enough. And do you know what we do with people in this world who don’t try hard enough?? WE EAT THEM.

Here I am with a Chick-fil-a cow. This clearly illustrates how far these cows are taking their campaign…to business offices. I just don’t think anyone would love these advertising darlings any less if some of them were sophisticated beings who spelled correctly and maybe even had fancy handwriting. IF A COW CAN TIE A TIE, IT SHOULD KNOW HOW TO SPELL.
In good news, though, I had no desire to steal this cow the way I want to steal some Chick-fil-a cows I could mention. I think it’s the 2-D vs. 3-D thing. This is just a cardboard cow. I want a cow that takes up some space in a room. Plus, this cow is already dressed, and I would TOTALLY want to make the Chick-fil-a cows cute costumes after I go to the trouble of stealing them.

mooooooooving on up

Alright, so I had another blog lapse. I trace this recent lapse to 4 distinct causes.

Cause #1: I turned one year older, which was fairly traumatic for me, as many people who were around me at the time can attest. I mean, I don’t want to get too specific about it, but I went from MID-twenties to LATE-twenties and I was none-too-happy about it. Luckily, with the help of some beer and some Funfetti cupcakes made by my kind friend and editor Katie, I am much more at peace with my new age.

Cause #2: I was pretty busy. First up there was my birthday party. Then I went to see Neko Case in concert (it was incredibly awesome). Then I threw a party for my coworkers, which involved making both dip and punch. I was pretty busy all last week, and then came the weekend and cause #3.

Cause #3: I got pretty sick. Well, not sick, because it wasn’t a virus or a bug that felled me but instead my sinuses. It has felt like an elephant was sitting on my head, which made it to even get out of bed, let alone blog. Maybe I am getting weak and infirm and frail in my old age.

But the real reason for the gap in blogging is Cause #4.

Cause #4: The Chick-fil-a cows have spoken again.

Now, you know all about me and the Chick-fil-a cows. How I love them. How I want to steal them. Better yet, how I want to just open my door one day and see them there. I would sit them down with a dictionary and I would teach them how to spell, letter by letter, with the patience that Annie Sullivan showed to young Helen Keller.

Now, in all the time that I have known them, the Chick-fil-a cows have been guarding a sign that says “After Counting Sheep, Count Some Chicken,” except, you know, horribly misspelled. Then on Tuesday, without warning, there was a whole new message! Take a look at this:
I am of two minds on this billboard. On the one hand, I am kind of thrilled that these cows are going to give me different messages each week or so. It makes them more mythical and magical, and that’s why blogging last week was delayed….I have just been sitting under the billboard, hoping to catch those cows in the act of painting something new much the way that children try to glimpse Santa Claus on Christmas Eve.

But I also have some consternation about this billboard. As you know, it drives me up the wall that these cows can’t spell. But now I am supposed to believe that these cows know so much of the world that they know what text messages look like? And they know about emoticons and text message abbreviations they can do? And they know how to modify their sloppy painting style so that it looks like electronic print? They know all this and they still don’t know how to spell? I can’t reconcile these facts, and that’s also why blogging has been delayed over the past week. I have just been thinking and thinking about the situation.

Though I’m confused, I’m more intrigued than ever about these cows. I think I am officially reviving my plan to steal the cows, so I can study them further. However, I would be willing to suspend these plans if someone from Chick-fil-a headquarters were to offer me 3 value meals a week for the rest of my natural-born life. I’m just throwing that out there as a starting point. Let’s talk, Chick-fil-a. You can communicate with me via the comments on this blog, or have the cows paint a message to me on my billboard. You know the one.

sorry, God.

As I wrote yesterday, God has definitively shown me that I cannot steal the Chick-fil-a cows without risking some sort of trouble with the police. So I just want to let God know that when I pulled into the parking lot of an adult entertainment place this morning at 8:30 a.m. to take a picture of the cows, it was not because I was in any way casing the joint or planning any future crimes. These pictures are just for my records.

Here are the cows that consume me. Can't you hear them calling out to me? Because I can. I hear them begging to be taken down and put in my car (or a flatbed truck, should I decide to use one for the purpose of transportation and also for the purpose of not having my actual license plates possibly photographed).

Those cows call my name. Even now, 15 minutes away and 15 stories high, I can hear their pleading moos.

But as I said, I AM DEFINITELY NOT PLANNING ON STEALING THEM. Even though they are located very low to the ground, as I have mentioned and as I captured in this photograph.

And yes, now that you mention it, it would be very easy to use the roof of that building as a staging area for my hijinks. But unfortunately, I am absolutely, most definitely, without a question, not going to steal those cows. No matter how good they would look in my apartment, I will not do it. Not even the prospect of silencing all the voices in my head that talk to me about cows would motivate me to steal anything off that billboard. If I say it enough times, I shall believe it: I WILL NOT STEAL THE CHICK-FIL-A COWS.

update on my commute

This morning, like all mornings this week, I was pondering how to steal the Chick-fil-a cows that are on a billboard near my apartment. As I wrote on Monday, this is my new obsession, and each time I drive by, I become more and more convinced that those cows could be mine. I even know where I would put them in my apartment (in the bedroom; maybe in the kitchen when I cook beef).

Then, a vehicle changed lanes, entering mine. It was a police van, and painted on the back were these words: "Stay Back - Prisoner Transport." I took this as a sign from God that I need to stop thinking about how to steal the Chick-fil-a cows.

The rest of my commute was very scary! After being ordered from God to stop thinking about cows, I was forced to think about just what kind of criminal(s) might be in the van ahead. It turns out I have an overactive imagination when it comes to awful criminals and I arrived at work very frightened and worked up. I will not think of those cows anymore, because I don't want God to have to send me any more scary signs.

But I just have to say, I wish I ran a prison of bad spellers. Then I could drive a prison transport van and arrest those cows. I'm just saying.

Monday morning so far

There's a new billboard up on the road I take to work. It's for Chick-fil-a, and instead of just having pictures of cows painting out their horribly spelled words, it has three-dimensional cows. When I see this billboard, I am consumed by just one thought for the duration of my commute:

I WANT TO STEAL THOSE COWS.

Now, I have seen these three-dimensional cows on Chick-fil-a billboards before, but never have the cows been such low-hanging fruit. And I mean that quite literally…the billboard seems lower to the ground than other billboards, and I think that I could make those cows mine, depending of course on what kind of adhesive is used to keep them up there.

MUST HAVE COWS.

In other Monday morning news, I rode the elevator up with this lady who was on her cell phone. She said "holy manoley!" in response to something on her call, and it really irked me. She was just trying too hard. However, it gave me the idea for a new phrase that is infinitely more adorable: "holy cannoli!" Look for me to drop this gem into conversation as much as possible.