McDonald's Settles Case Over Nasty Food

cDonald’s Corp. has agreed to donate $10 million to consumer groups to settle lawsuits filed against the chain for mislabeling its food as fresh and tasty.

McDonald’s also posted an apology on its Web site, acknowledging that mistakes were made in communicating to customers about the edibility of its food. The worldwide chain has been selling burgers and sandwiches not suitable for adults since the early 1950’s.

“We sincerely apologize for any hardship or lousy meals that these miscommunications have caused among our billions of customers,” the company said in an apology posted June 1 on the Web site.

Seattle attorney Harish Bharti said Tuesday that a judge gave his tentative approval of the deal last month while bitterly chewing on a Quarter Pounder with Cheese. “This is McNasty,” the judge added.

McDonald’s spokeswoman Anna Rozenich said the money the company will be paying out will go to watchdog organizations that fight for truth in advertising and other issues linked to concerns raised by the consumers, including the poaching of endangered species and psychological trauma caused by life-sized ceramic clowns.

McDonald’s was first sued in Seattle last year by three customers who expected to be able to eat the Extra Value Meals they purchased at a Seattle-area McDonald’s restaurant, not realizing they were purchasing pet toys. The trend caught on, and lawsuits were subsequently filed in Illinois, California, New Jersey and Texas.

The lawsuits were filed on behalf of any customer who ate at a McDonald’s restaurant after 1971. That was the year the company first started showing adults eating McDonalds sandwiches in its ads and commercials, a feat considered impossible by many.

“Our slogan has long been, ‘Delivering the taste you’ve come to expect from McDonald’s’,” said Rozenich. “We still believe this to be a true statement. What that taste is has never been specified in a legal context.”

As part of the lawsuit, the consumer group Pants on Fire pushed to have McDonald’s slogan changed to the more accurate “Our fries are pretty good, but I’d stay away from anything claiming to contain meat,” which was turned down by the judge.

Pants on Fire first came into the public spotlight in 1996, when they sued to have Bank of America’s national slogan changed to “Fuck you and your piddling little checking account.”

McDonald’s customers nationwide reacted with joy at the news of the settlement. “It’s about fuckin’ time,” said Harvey McNeil of Des Plains, Iowa. “Look at that picture,” McNeil said, gesturing toward the menu, which pictured a succulent, juicy Big Mac sitting on a slab of marble next to a bushel of fresh tomatoes and lettuce. “Now look at this,” McNeil continued, opening his cardboard Big Mac container to reveal the pathetic, lopsided mess within. “It looks like somebody shit this out of a tube of Big Macs,” McNeil announced. “I’d take this back but they guy up there doesn’t speak any English.”

“The fast food industry is unique in that it has little accountability,” said attorney Bharti. “If you bought a toaster and found it to be malformed and unappealing inside the box, you’d take it back and demand a refund. The manufacturer could never stay in business. But fast food restaurants thrive on rushed customers and a reliably inept staff to prevent any kind of feedback loop that would hurt business. It’s an enviable racket.”

“McDonald’s listens to its customers and has vowed to make a change for the better,” claimed Rozenich with something close to a straight face. “This $10 million settlement is something McDonald’s takes very seriously, it will take us at least seven minutes to make that money back.”

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Rok Finger is back in the dating pool, good people. So he better not feel any warm water around you teen-agers, because I get violent when standing in piss.

You read right—violent standing in piss. True, too, before the piss part: I'm playing the field again. The outfield, and it's lonely out here. Truthfully I've been available since being split from my wife last year by my own indignation, outrage, and paranoia, but I'm actively seeking female companionship for coupling now. And I mean now, as we speak. I might be getting around to your neighborhood soon, so you pretty single ladies meet me out by your mailboxes. And you pretty unavailable ladies, just make sure your husband's at work, or at least smaller than 4 foot tall and unable to kickbox.

I'm no homewrecker, despite what those repair people and Camembert say. But it's about time Rok Finger got "serviced," if you know what I mean. Yes, of course: intercourse. Or at least simple female companionship, as long as some genital contact is involved on some level. I'm a little "hot under the collar," that's how we used to phrase it in the neighborhood I grew up in. I could use a little "loosening up," especially as provided by "hours and hours of animal-like fucking." I read the last part in a book once, or it was something Lee said.

I'm a private man, as my national column often attests, and it's difficult to express your feelings sometimes, especially tingly below-the-waist feelings, but I've been waiting too long for companionship and when the mystery enigma charade doesn't draw in the ladies, I figure honesty can't do any worse. I can always say I was lying about that, too. But it's high time Rok Finger met a good woman to spend time with, horizontal time, and my definition of "good" opens a little more each day. Give me a few weeks and attractive drag queens may apply as well.

There's something about sharing an apartment with two men and a shit-filled catbox that makes you question the single life. Fun has been fun, except when it hasn't been, but after too long you begin to desire a sense of order, and breasts. My past wives have all been bitter harpies, even before I married them, but all have brought that much-needed discipline to my life. Let's face it, I'm a mess alone—I need someone to encourage my moral snobbery, to heal the wounds on my bruised ego, to convince me to quit shitting in the catbox.

As you can see, it's not just any woman I seek—though I will accept any woman on a short-term basis as earlier implied. No, it takes a woman of strong character, like Eleanor Roosevelt without the socialism, or Blondie. Are my standards too high? Prostitutes tell me that. And maybe it's true. But sometimes it's necessary to set high standards, for ourselves and especially for others, and make everyone meet them. Unless you're talking brief sexual contact, at which point my standards are still slipping. Another month and farm animals with convincing attire will be able to sweet-talk me.

Have no fear, good people. Rok Finger will continue to report on everything that matters in life, including his own private feelings that make others extremely uncomfortable. This little mental sidetrack has proved to me I've gotten a little off-course since leaving Arvelyn (did you read that, Arvelyn? I left you. Now it's in print). But it's only a matter of time before this high-flying hot air balloon has the baggage needed to ground it, and I return to my fine form. Of course, I'll never pass my 1970s columns. Man, those were sweet top-of-the-game editions. Except for the muttonchops; I'm ready to admit now they were a bad idea.

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There are way too many states these days. When I was a kid, we had four: New York, Georgia, Beezlefromt and Indiana. Indiana was everything west of Georgia, where the Indians lived. Beezlefromt was a big green state that got bought out by the Japanese. It ain't around no more, and you can kiss it goodbye. If you want to take you and your family on a vacation to Beezlefromt, you'd best get yourself some tickets on the U.S.S. Ain't Gonna Happen.

Nowadays, seems like everybody and their sister has to have their own state. Cecil P. Washington, both Carolines, Floridiots, Kansans. Then a bunch of them Kansans went and got themselves kicked on out of Kansas for whistlin' Dixie and had to start their own state, callin' in "Ar-kansas," since it was Kansas done up their own way. We got to keep on dolin' out states to keep everybody happy. The deaf, the dumb, the ornery… not to mention folks from Chicago! Why don't we hand out two Dakotas while we're feelin' generous? That was a sarcasm.

Never there was a country who done well in history havin' more than four states. Just look at the Turkeys. Once was the day when Turkey was the biggest nation on dry land. Then they went and kicked the bridesmaid in the cherry by splitting it all up into four hundred states, one for each Turkeyan who threw a dollar in the pot. At the time it seemed like a zipper of an idea, four hundred bucks back then was more than what it cost to pave a street with live humans. But before a year was out the Turkey Empire fell into ruin and the world laughed at them by naming after them a stupid bird.

Yet are we too foolish and proud to learn the lesson of the Turkeys? Apparently so, because every time I turn around we've gone and baked up another state. Maine! Maine ain't a state any more than is the left half of my ass. A friend of mine once spit across Maine when he was in a showin-off kind of mood. Maine's a place you look when you can't find your car keys, and that don't make it a state.

Before we head too far down the wrong road in the devil's mule-cart, we'd best lay down some rules about what does and what don't make a state. Stand a little closer and some of that smart might rub off on you. Here's one for ya: If it rains, it ain't a state. We can't be awarding every little stretch of wilderness stateship now, can we? It's time to buckle down. Got crows? Ain't a state in my book. Corn grows there? See ya later, not-a-stater. Sun gets in your eyes? Sorry, but you're just not state material.

Throw enough of these freeloading states out of the union and you'll start to see some others clean up their act, marker my words. New Mexico? Who exactly do they think they're fooling? Same old Mexico in my book. You can dress up a heifer like a milkmaid, but it's still just tomorrow's pork roast. New Mexico's had plenty of time to put it's big-hat-wearin', afternoon-nap-taking days behind it, but all we get is excuses. It's time we tell New Mexico that it's chances of stayin' a state are slim an none, and ol' Slim just porked that Nun.

But of course I know it's all yakkin' in the wind, 'cause regardless of what I say, they're gonna keep churnin' out those states til we're all livin' in dirt huts and the rest of the world is namin' stupid birds after us. All I can do is hope that bird is tasty.

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