It’s been difficult to come to terms with my masculinity, all 260 pounds of grotesque mannishness.
I do so love getting makeovers at the hands of my 7-year-old daughter, but when a perfectly applied coat of crème foundation is marred by a 5 o’clock shadow, I simply have to accept my testy testosterone, and all that testes-forming turmoil that comes along with it.
It simply makes me who I am, and no amount of shocking pink toe nail polish and flowing scarves are going to change that.
Sorry, Kid, no more Saturday afternoon play dates with the cherry-flavored lip gloss and glittery eye shadow.
I am man, hear me roar; these are truths I can’t ignore; roles that for some are a bore; but damn it, I need more. …
Chick-fil-A, that is.
If I’m bursting out of the closet like this, I might as well come clean entirely, and that starts with the uncomfortable admission that back in November, in Rancho Cucamonga in the year of Our Lord, Two Thousand Eleven, A.D., I came to know Chick-fil-A in the biblical way.
I was naïve. It was a time of experimentation; trying anything once, just for the kicks of it, like in college. I won’t lie; it just felt natural, like I was born this way.
I have since laid awake at night dreaming of that delicious chicken breast, deep-fried to a golden brown and perched ever so gently on a buttery, flaky biscuit with a precocious pickle and just a tasteful dollop of mayo. So messy, and so naughty.
Oh, Chick-fil-A, how you haunt me; so tender yet assertive. Your flavors are subtle, your texture soft and juicy, but you never let me forget I’m a man … who loves women … a lot, damn it.
Some of my best friends are gay, but my more better best friends — my besties — are not, and if we would have had a Chick-fil-A in Hetero Centro, we would have stood in line till all hours of the night to show our appreciation for that bear of a man Dan Cathy.
Urban legend has it that there are gay employees at Chick-fil-A, which you can tell by the way they batter the chicken, or so I’ve heard. But Chatty Cathy lets them work there as long as they don’t sashay around the joint, swishing up the place with all their fabulousness.
So what if they have to work in that environment? Not everybody gets to feel free from persecution in the workplace, so why should they? Can I get an amen?
If they don’t like it, they can quit. There are plenty of other jobs out there. Good God-fearing Americans will be lining up for those minimum-wage positions of subservience, like the good bottoms they are, looking for any safe word to stop the emotional pain of hearing a 275-pound woman in a muumuu tell them how proud she is to woof down a bag of heart-attack-inducing sandwiches in support of family values.
This is America! Who says that some semi-gainfully, Chick-fil-A-employed teenager coming to terms with his sexuality or an undereducated line cook whose private life affects absolutely no one gets to work in a nondiscriminatory environment?
We can’t control an impromptu “Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day,” where manly men like myself stand in line, caboose-to-caboose, all sweaty and agitated, with Larry the Cable Guy stunt doubles, just itching at our chance to tell some cashier at the front counter how we hates us some gays, too, and loves us some chicken.
I’m a man, and men eat Chick-fil-A. All of you other sissies can prance your way down to KFC and Church’s, and butter those biscuits all night long. … Too butch?
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