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Imagine waking up in the morning and driving to your job at Burger King corporate headquarters. You are the resident Director of Innovation and Product Development, or somesuch title. It's the last day of the month, and your proposals for new products are due by 5 p.m. You've got nothing, nothing that could save your job this month. Starting next week, you'll have to pull little Billy out of The Waldorf Private Academy for White Collar Boys. The well will have gone dry. Is there still an open bed at Mom and Dad's house? And all because you can't create something new out of nothing.

That's the kind of pressure I like to imagine fast food executives are under. They're told “CREATE A NEW PRODUCT,” but it comes with an incredibly limiting caveat: “DON'T USE ANY NEW INGREDIENTS THAT WE DON'T ALREADY MANUFACTURE EN MASSE.”

I have no proof that this is how these companies operate, but it's the only thing that can explain every other product introduced by the likes of Taco Bell. And it's also the only thing that can explain Burger King's new “extra long BBQ cheeseburger.” This, put simply, is what desperation and hopelessness look like.