Drop that Chicken Finger
Tuesday, November 20, 2007 at 00:00
By Marcel Strigberger
America is struggling to reconcile two conflicting mores. On the one hand there is the desire to eradicate violence. On the other there is the inalienable right as suggested by the gun lobby folks, of an American to bear arms. As Archie Bunker used to say, "An American has the right to pack a rod." This brings me to the chicken finger.
It seems a first grade boy in a small town in Arkansas recently pointed a breaded chicken finger at his teacher and said, "Pow, pow, pow". The teacher apparently became appalled and he reported the matter to the principal who suspended the young offender for 3 days. The reason for this suspension was the school district's zero tolerance policy against weapons.
The kid's mother of course argued that a chicken finger is not really a weapon but her plea fell on deaf ears.
Then again before we cry foul, what if that school board principal was right? What if a chicken finger is a weapon?
I researched the matter carefully, rummaging through the bowels of the most authoritative almanacs, encyclopaedias and obscure websites. No doubt the school's principal did the same research to come to the conclusion that a breaded chicken finger is indeed a weapon.
Did you know chicken finger were extensively used as weapons in biblical times. Did you know how Cain killed Abel? A rock you think? Guess again. Abel had a tendency of sacrificing animals to the good Lord and these animals were not calves or lambs. You guessed it. While Abel wasn't watching Cain grabbed the chicken off the sacrificial alter, cut it up into chicken fingers and breaded it lightly and deep fried it. He then approached his brother and said, "So you think you have it all? Take this", at which point he poked him between the eyes with a chicken finger. Death was instant.
Centuries later Samson the strong man was cornered by 1000 mad Philistines out to do him in. Folklore has it that he saw a nearby jawbone of an ass lying around and that he used it to smite these mad Philistines. Folklore it is.
The fact is that prior to the encounter the strong man had just been out with Delila for dinner. Nothing fancy, just some chicken fingers and fries. Suddenly the Philistine mob surrounded the diner and demanded that Samson come out and fight. Their leader General Og shouted, "Are you a man or are you a chicken!"
That did it. Samson rose to the occasion, charging out of the restaurant with a large chicken finger in each hand and slapping and poking the Philistines with these chicken fingers until every last one of them was subdued. I'll bet you did not know this one but most likely that bible belting principal in Arkansas did.
It does not stop in the bible. Any avid Latin student can tell you that the Romans regularly used chicken fingers as lethal weapons. You all saw the epic movie Gladiator ? Well I'll tell you what the censors did not let our innocent eyes see. Never mind the swords or the spears or the arrows. These cause instant death. The censors snipped and cut the part about macho gladiator Russel Crowe subduing his opponents in the ring by stuffing breaded chicken fingers up their nose. Their tridents and nets were of little defence against the chicken finger.
Even the assassination of Julius Caesar had more than meets the eye, or should I say the palate. Noted Roman pathologist, Gaius Flyus, did a post mortem on Caesar and he noted that many of the stab wounds contained traces of breadcrumbs. That Arkansas principal was no slouch.
There is very little reported however about chicken fingers in the dark ages. The Vikings for example were more into fish. There are numerous stories about their warriors smashing a salted herring over their unsuspecting opponents.
The chicken finger achieved prominence again as a weapon after the end of the first millennium when Norman the Conqueror invaded England in 1066. The place was Hastings England. The victim was the Brit King Harold. The cause of death? You guessed it. Right into his right eye. Not only breaded but the size of a baguette. Those French!
With the arrival of gunpowder, Chicken fingers started taking a backseat to cannonballs. But they did not quite go back to the roost altogether. About 700 years later, General James Wolfe lay siege to Quebec. After trying for weeks to get the city to surrender by bombarding the walled city with cannonballs, he decided instead to blitz it with numerous volleys of chicken fingers. His intention was not to directly hurt the residents. It was to get them to eat the chicken fingers and drop off from excess cholesterol. After a while winter started approaching and the good General had to abandon this line of action and settle on plan B, namely finding a French traitor who could show the British that secret unguarded path leading into the massively fortified city. Effective but definitely not as exciting.
Even the twentieth century has seen chicken fingers fingered for use in warfare. Einstein himself spent hours researching the subject. We don't know half the story about the theory of relativity. You know E=MC2? You know what the "C" really stands for? Exactly!
Einstein before leaving Germany had noticed that his colleague Professor Von Zemel at the University of Heidelberg was busy at a secret laboratory cooking up chicken fingers with mushrooms. One day he heard a loud bang. He rushed in to find Von Zemel lying stunned on the ground. Over the fryer Einstein saw this large mushroom cloud rising.
We may never know the full significance of this as the CIA has put a 99 year long lid on Einstein's confidential memoirs.
And so as you can see it may be very easy to judge and condemn that school principal for suspending that first grader whom he accused of using a weapon. To that gentleman a chicken finger is anything but finger lickin' good.
America is struggling to reconcile two conflicting mores. On the one hand there is the desire to eradicate violence. On the other there is the inalienable right as suggested by the gun lobby folks, of an American to bear arms. As Archie Bunker used to say, "An American has the right to pack a rod." This brings me to the chicken finger.
It seems a first grade boy in a small town in Arkansas recently pointed a breaded chicken finger at his teacher and said, "Pow, pow, pow". The teacher apparently became appalled and he reported the matter to the principal who suspended the young offender for 3 days. The reason for this suspension was the school district's zero tolerance policy against weapons.
The kid's mother of course argued that a chicken finger is not really a weapon but her plea fell on deaf ears.
Then again before we cry foul, what if that school board principal was right? What if a chicken finger is a weapon?
I researched the matter carefully, rummaging through the bowels of the most authoritative almanacs, encyclopaedias and obscure websites. No doubt the school's principal did the same research to come to the conclusion that a breaded chicken finger is indeed a weapon.
Did you know chicken finger were extensively used as weapons in biblical times. Did you know how Cain killed Abel? A rock you think? Guess again. Abel had a tendency of sacrificing animals to the good Lord and these animals were not calves or lambs. You guessed it. While Abel wasn't watching Cain grabbed the chicken off the sacrificial alter, cut it up into chicken fingers and breaded it lightly and deep fried it. He then approached his brother and said, "So you think you have it all? Take this", at which point he poked him between the eyes with a chicken finger. Death was instant.
Centuries later Samson the strong man was cornered by 1000 mad Philistines out to do him in. Folklore has it that he saw a nearby jawbone of an ass lying around and that he used it to smite these mad Philistines. Folklore it is.
The fact is that prior to the encounter the strong man had just been out with Delila for dinner. Nothing fancy, just some chicken fingers and fries. Suddenly the Philistine mob surrounded the diner and demanded that Samson come out and fight. Their leader General Og shouted, "Are you a man or are you a chicken!"
That did it. Samson rose to the occasion, charging out of the restaurant with a large chicken finger in each hand and slapping and poking the Philistines with these chicken fingers until every last one of them was subdued. I'll bet you did not know this one but most likely that bible belting principal in Arkansas did.
It does not stop in the bible. Any avid Latin student can tell you that the Romans regularly used chicken fingers as lethal weapons. You all saw the epic movie Gladiator ? Well I'll tell you what the censors did not let our innocent eyes see. Never mind the swords or the spears or the arrows. These cause instant death. The censors snipped and cut the part about macho gladiator Russel Crowe subduing his opponents in the ring by stuffing breaded chicken fingers up their nose. Their tridents and nets were of little defence against the chicken finger.
Even the assassination of Julius Caesar had more than meets the eye, or should I say the palate. Noted Roman pathologist, Gaius Flyus, did a post mortem on Caesar and he noted that many of the stab wounds contained traces of breadcrumbs. That Arkansas principal was no slouch.
There is very little reported however about chicken fingers in the dark ages. The Vikings for example were more into fish. There are numerous stories about their warriors smashing a salted herring over their unsuspecting opponents.
The chicken finger achieved prominence again as a weapon after the end of the first millennium when Norman the Conqueror invaded England in 1066. The place was Hastings England. The victim was the Brit King Harold. The cause of death? You guessed it. Right into his right eye. Not only breaded but the size of a baguette. Those French!
With the arrival of gunpowder, Chicken fingers started taking a backseat to cannonballs. But they did not quite go back to the roost altogether. About 700 years later, General James Wolfe lay siege to Quebec. After trying for weeks to get the city to surrender by bombarding the walled city with cannonballs, he decided instead to blitz it with numerous volleys of chicken fingers. His intention was not to directly hurt the residents. It was to get them to eat the chicken fingers and drop off from excess cholesterol. After a while winter started approaching and the good General had to abandon this line of action and settle on plan B, namely finding a French traitor who could show the British that secret unguarded path leading into the massively fortified city. Effective but definitely not as exciting.
Even the twentieth century has seen chicken fingers fingered for use in warfare. Einstein himself spent hours researching the subject. We don't know half the story about the theory of relativity. You know E=MC2? You know what the "C" really stands for? Exactly!
Einstein before leaving Germany had noticed that his colleague Professor Von Zemel at the University of Heidelberg was busy at a secret laboratory cooking up chicken fingers with mushrooms. One day he heard a loud bang. He rushed in to find Von Zemel lying stunned on the ground. Over the fryer Einstein saw this large mushroom cloud rising.
We may never know the full significance of this as the CIA has put a 99 year long lid on Einstein's confidential memoirs.
And so as you can see it may be very easy to judge and condemn that school principal for suspending that first grader whom he accused of using a weapon. To that gentleman a chicken finger is anything but finger lickin' good.
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© 2007 Marcel Strigberger. This article CANNOT be copied or reproduced in any way without the expressed written consent of the Author.
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