Don't Make Me Hurt You, Wendy

As you may know, I've had my problems with Wendy's in the past.

The one in B'burg never seemed to have an onion, though they wouldn't actually go so far as to tell me that little tidbit, the one in B'field never had any potatoes (I still don't know how a restaurant can let itself run out of potatoes, but that's a rant long gone by).

Back in the good old days, well, the good old days for Big Wendy, because she got waaaay more of my money than she gets now, I used to go to the drive thru on a regular basis. Many of those times, I'd order one of their specialty salads. Something funny happened with the advent of those specialty salads; they decided they were upscale. For years, Wendy's sold Italian dressing. Suddenly "Italian" wasn't good enough for them. It was "House Vinaigrette."

I'd order a salad, and the disembodied voice coming through the speakerbox would say, "What dressing would you like with that?" "Italian," I'd answer. "I'm sorry, we don't have Italian anymore." Then I'd look at the menu and see "House Vinaigrette," and order that.

Then Wendy and I decided not to see each other so much. The only times I've been there lately have been for lunch, when I order a small chili and call it a day.

Until tonight.

Tonight I had a hankering for a salad (I'm just now starting to work them back into my repetoire). So after swimming I zipped through the drive-thru and ordered a side salad. "What dressing would you like?" came the question. And without thinking I answered, "Italian."

"Aheh. We don't have Italian."

Now, there are a lot of things I don't need in my life, but one of the last things I need to deal with is some uppity teenager giving me attitude from behind a speakerbox. What I answered to this Naziette, because I'm nicer than I should be, was, "Well, I want that vinaigrette dressing that's exactly the same as Italian."

What I'd like to say is this: Get over yourself, Wendy. You're a fuckin' fast food restaurant, and I don't care what you call your fucking "House Vinaigrette" dressing, it's nothing but fucking Italian. It was Italian when you started carrying fucking salads, and it's the exact same fucking recipe, only the packaging is different. So you can call it whatever the fuck you want, but I and everyone else in the free fucking world knows it's fucking Italian dressing!

In other words, take your House Vinaigrette and shove it.

Betland's Olympic Update:
* Short attention span theatre: I've been noticing that some of the staples of Olympics coverage, most that I hate (basketball, boxing), but some that I like (real volleyball, badminton, equestrian), have been relegated to the "other channels" at "other times." No NBC prime-time coverage. I've decided this is because they take more than 2 minutes to complete, therefore being way too long for the average TV-watching American to care about. Think about it: swimming, gymnastics, nekkid beach volleyball. It's 2 minutes, a cloud of dust, and off to a commercial. I don't know what they'll do about the marathon later.
* Another great name. Chinese swimmer Qi Hui. Pronounced "Chee Wee."
* A shitload of weightlifters got banned from the Olympics for failing a drug test. Including a woman! It makes me think, though. Do they test the horses in the equestrian events for performance enhancing drugs? It would make for an interesting headline. "Disqualified from competition today were Sudhakar Gramauhadi, Figaro Monzini, Hi Leung Wei, and Trixie."