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Here’s a story I found on Cnn.com’s “World” page. The “World”
page features stories with headlines like these:
Spain begins repatriating illegal
Senegalese
And
Mexican officials say they’ll
destroy ballots
And
Chavez-Castro ties may curb U.S. on Cuba
(whatever that means)
And
Food giant bows to hedgehog
Now, wait just a minute. Back up, there. Food giant bows to
hedgehog? THAT one, I had to read. As a service to loyal
jpchambers.com readers, here’s my report.
Hedgehogs are small, rodent-like creatures with beady eyes and,
according to Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia, “have changed
little over the last 15 million years”, or at least since 1950.
Also according to Wikipedia, they eat mostly insects and fruit,
but my own extensive research, which consists mainly of looking
at pictures, has concluded that they would probably much rather
eat humans, then take over human homes and watch Sportscenter
all night (they’re nocturnal).
Now, it seems that the only thing that stood between hedgehogs
and total world domination (and huge Sportscenter ratings) was
their weakness for a product from McDonald’s called the McFlurry.
The McFlurry is an ice cream dessert that comes in a cup with a
lid. The lid had an opening that was just large enough for the
hedgehogs to get their heads into, but just small enough that
they couldn’t then get their heads out of. Thus, the animals
were getting discarded lids stuck on their heads and were, quoting
from Cnn.com now, “Dying in untold numbers”, which means at
least 2.
It
seems that this was a large enough problem in England (where
hedgehogs live) that a group of people, who I now believe are
hedgehog domination co-conspirators, have formed a group called
the British Hedgehog Preservation Society. The BHPS, having
almost nothing else to do, has spent the last five years
lobbying the McDonald’s corporation to change their McFlurry
packaging.
FIVE years.
McDonald’s, for their part, performed “significant research and
design testing” to create a solution, which ended up being a lid
with a smaller opening. Brilliant. No wonder my Happy Meals cost
so much. So now, despite the fact that no one I’ve spoken with
has ever even seen a hedgehog with a dessert lid stuck on its
head, the little creatures are free to lull humans into
complacency and organize their inevitable attack. Now they know
that it will take at least five years and possibly billions of
dollars for us to formulate the proper style of dessert lid to
use in defending ourselves.
Thank you, British Hedgehog Preservation Society.
Thank you, McDonald’s.
Now, it’s getting late and I need to go watch Sportscenter while
I still can.
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