Every so often, Checkers offers the “Bacon Philly Cheese Steak Sub”, which looks quite tasty. I’ve never tried it, but have ingested my fair share of their flagship The BIg Buford, which sounds like a character on The Dukes of Hazzard, or the brand name of an oblong sex device.

After YouTubing several fat Rednecks gorging themselves on this “Philly Sub” while making gobbling grunts, I knew I had to try it. When a Redneck moans, you know it’s good eatin’!

What I received through that cracked, grease stained drive-thru window prompted the below letter to Checkers, which I sent by mail, as well as submitted online to their site.

Enrique Silva

President and CEO

Checkers Drive-In Restaurants, Inc.

4300 W. Cyrus St. Suite 600

Tampa, FL 33607

Dear Customer Relations,

I am a simple man with simple pleasures. I am not one of those fellas that go banana nut cereal crazy if service is slow, help is rude, or my fries are limp. Yes, I would like erect potato sticks, but I understand people have bad days in the food service industry just the same as anyone else.

When it comes to fast food, it does not take much to make me skip happily along the sidewalk with my hands swinging side by side.

I have VERY simple expectations, especially if the food is being dispensed from a restaurant the size of a Rubbermaid storage unit.

For years I have frequented the Checkers located at 5705 Baltimore National Pike, Catonsville, MD 21228, and have had no major issues with the food being dispensed from that particular Rubbermaid Shed.

If my chicken sandwich arrives looking similar to the ads, I consider that to be extra whipped cream on my pie, and will have wonderful thoughts of sugar dancing plums in my head.

Otherwise, I could care less about its appearance of my food, so long as it is reasonable in its construction.

On many occasions, my burger patty looks like a handful of hamster poop pellets congealed into the shape of Texas, but that’s alright with me.

Missing a drumette or two in my 10 piece buffalo wing box? No problem. I’m okay with that.

Like I said, it’s all about simple expectations, and when I order wings, I do so with an expected standard deviation of plus or minus 2 wings.

You see, I UNDERSTAND the plight of the fast food worker.

To simultaneously maintain an accurate count of wings while operating a complex kitchen device such as a pair of tongs can be incredibly difficult, and thus, I EMPATHIZE.

I’m with you my people! Keep the struggle alive my fry-scented fryers!

BUT…

What I am NOT okay with, is ordering this,

And RECEIVING THIS!

Do you see that? Do you see it? Do you know what you are looking at?

YOU, my friend, are staring at DISAPPOINTMENT, the END of INDUSTRIALIZATION, the disintegration of GLOBAL COMMERCE, and quite possibly the cataclysmic COLLAPSE of the CIVILIZED WORLD!

When a LARGE Fast Food Chain such as CHECKERS, with its 750+ Rubbermaid Restaurants, whose primary business objective is to assemble pre-prepared, pre-cooked, and highly processed food manufactured in an industrialized manner to ensure consistency, FAILS…

And instead dispenses this sickle cell sub to a consumer then yes, the crumbling of our economic system is underway, reversing humanity back to an agrarian society.

Your commercials and ads flaunt “tender, juicy, thin cut steak piled HIGH, with slabs of crispy bacon”.

Really Checkers? Really?

The only thing high here is the employee who TOKED up in the freezer before making this bulimic concoction.

If this Cheese Steak was an Oil on Canvas Painting, it would be entitled “Lacking Meat” from the Minimalistic Period.

I realize that the pool of applicants to fry mozzarella sticks at 1 a.m may consists of recent parolees, Somalian Refugees, and witnesses from the Federal Protection Program, so I get it.

But the Middle School Drop-Out that MADE this sub, and the Junior High School Drop-Out Manager that ALLOWED this sub to go out, has to be the most doltish, dense, and dimwitted dummies in the town of fools.

Whether this was done on PURPOSE or in ERROR is irrelevant. The fact that it was DONE, regardless as a prank or due to lack of attention to detail, i.e, f#cking common sense, their mental capacity definitely are a few croutons short of a side salad.

I guess I should be grateful that there is some steak that checked into the Bread Motel, because apparently its roommate BACON, never showed up!

I actually did not even notice the bacon was missing initially, because I was so appalled and shocked by the sheer ridiculousness of what I got, that when I realized the MIA pork strips, I was already numb from the slap in the face your company gave me.

And why are there gummy worms commingling with the scant pieces of scattered protein?

Hey, I applaud Checkers for taking a risk, and leading the Calvary in the Candy-Meat Revolution. I’m just not so sure that the flavor combination of meat fat and gelatinous sugar go together.

Kudos for the effort though.

Oh wait…

Silly me, those aren’t Haribos!

They are onions! And my, oh my, what elongated onions they are! I sure would love to see the waistline of the mama onion that gave birth to these long, floppy, purple-ish tapeworms.

I apologize…

I shouldn’t be so critical.

Especially since your company is quite busy defending the lawsuit from Subway for using their miniature cheese triangles.

All is not lost!

Halt! Hold your horses! Discovered deep within the wreck of this Philly Submarine sinking, there may exist a survivor!

There does appear to be a beautiful sister alive among the death of her otherwise butt ugly family!

And that sibling is the SUB ROLL itself, which does appear palatable.

Unfortunately, I cannot comment on the taste.

That’s because at the time of unveiling the above mentioned piece of crap, I immediately found myself going through a range of hostile emotions, which made me lose my mind, anger, and APPETITE.

While I may sound amused, make no mistake I was OJ psychotic at the time, with thoughts of thug nation clouding me.

But,

Make no mistake, this is a complaint letter.

If your company values consumer feedback, then this letter should be taken to heart, and overcome you with emotions

If not, then you need to be in my shoes to fully grasp the gravity of what I felt.

In fact, let’s put you in my shoes.

Imagine that you have a severe craving for some of that delicious original KFC chicken.

That poultry is so drool dripping addicting, that it would come as no surprise to you if it was revealed that the Colonel’s secret recipe of 11 herbs and spices, is simply just a blend of crack cocaine and chocolate.

You WANT them legs and thighs in your mouth.

You NEED those legs and thighs in your mouth.

So as you Mario Kart your way swerving through traffic, you remember your late father’s two most important life lessons; 1) a boy is only a man if he wrestles a Bengal Tiger naked, and 2) a man stays a man if he consumes buckets of fried chicken.

You can still hear his haunting last words “three piece meals… are for… little girls” as he took his final gasp, before passing away from high cholesterol and heart disease.

So with tears in your eyes, and an 8pc bucket as your passenger, you pull over to sauna in the steaming humidity of the American Dream that lies beneath that circular cardboard top.

With the excitement of a 14 year old boy unsnapping his first B-cup, you fumble that lid off, toss the holiday tissue paper aside, and what you see…. are bones. Chicken bones. Nasty ass chicken bones.

It might as well have been the carcass of your dead family dog.

Like me, you may have found yourself launching an anger grenade, which is when you stare in silence at something so ghastly for 7-8 seconds, and abruptly EXPLODE in a rage of HOSTILITY that would send feral cats scampering in all directions.

So close your eyes.

Close your eyes and picture those chicken bones.

Close your eyes and picture that dead dog carcass.

Ohh Checkers, you broke my heart.

For years, we had a good relationship. Those were the days of yonder.

You always gave me some of that guilty goodness when I wanted it.

I know I was not the most faithful, and to satisfy my needs, I would sometimes stray to SONIC.

But when I had a late night yearning, and when every other temptation was closed, I could always count on your extended hours for those midnight visits.

“Checkers After Dark”, was my sexy name for you.

Now those rendezvous are nevermore, because you hurt me so.

You betrayed me with your latest offering of the Bacon Philly Cheese Steak.

You teased me with those sexy commercials, and you aroused me with those pictures online.

Maybe you were tired, having pleased a lot of hungry men that night.

But you are a professional.

You knew what you were getting into when you opened up shop on the street corner.

Repeat customers line up for you.

You even have 2 drive thru lanes so you can get double teamed.

When I saw your discreet ad in the upper right hand corner online, I knew I wanted to taste you.

You looked so good. You looked so moist. You looked so juicy.

I WANTED you. I CRAVED you. I had to HAVE you.

I went to pick you up.

I paid upfront for you, and put you between my legs as I sped home.

You smelled so good on my lap.

I couldn’t wait to get you home and onto my table.

My hunger was uncontrollable as I undressed you, peeling off your silver foil.

But… it wasn’t you.

It was some anorexic bitch with no meat.

I pushed you aside, disgusted.

You filled me with anticipation and got me all excited, but ultimately left me yearning, backed up, and in desperate need of a release.

A man can NEVER forget that.

I WILL NEVER FORGET.

Shame on you Checkers.

I’m going back to Sonic.

[If I ever get a response from Checkers, I will update you all. In the meantime, Sonic’s got some good ass chili dogs.]

~WhamBam TY Tam