On Gettin' Piggy Wid It.

So there I was apologizing away to Singaporean drivers, and the next day (after cussing at them all under my breath on the way to work again) there is the headline on the front page of The Island Tribune: “McDonald's says sorry to Singapore”.

What the … ?

McDonald’s doesn’t say sorry to anyone.

Heck, this is a company that has been known to shut down a store when its staff threatened to join a union – and then open up a new store across the road under a new franchisee. Why they’ve even pulled the stores right out of a whole country when the locals didn’t play Right.

It turns out that while most of western folk just celebrated New Year, the Chinese are about to celebrate theirs next month. So a clever marketer at McD’s comes up with the idea to make a few extra coins by flogging little plastic toys that depict the animals of the Chinese zodiac calendar. It turns out there are 12 of the little critters.

Seems like a good plan.

Then someone from HR must have come late into the meeting. Because I can only gather the meeting then went something like this:

Marketing: “So here are the pre-run samples for the 12 miniature cartoon figurines of the Chinese Zodiac calendar. Market analysis suggests we can sell each of these at $2 - $3 with each Happy Meal.”

HR: “Is that a little pig?”

Marketing: “Well, I think they prefer to call it a wild boar. But sure, if you were born in 2007, or back in ’71, well then you were born in the year of the Pig.”

HR: “Won’t the Muslim population on The Island be offended?”

[Finance, Customer Service, and Production managers avert eyes, and begin neatly arranging their pens.]

Marketing: “What the …? There are 12 signs in their zodiac! Exactly how culturally sensitive is it to reduce it to 11?”

HR: “Well, what does the Boar Pig represent?”

[Marketing makes quick phone call to assistant.]

Marketing: “Gallantry. Virility. Or something like that.”

So now Mickey Dee’s is apologizing to us for replacing the Wild Boar with a Cupid figurine. Happy Valentine’s Day.

Now there are so many places to go with this, and … Whoah. Hang on. What does that say … ?

“Sat on boyfriend; killed him”

You.

Are.

Kidding Me.

I’m afraid you’ll have to put the ironies of the McD’s story together yourself.

Because The Island Tribune has been kind enough to provide some more fine journalistic work from those folks over at Fair and Unbalanced News, and I’ve just skimmed the essential details: 136kg vs 54kg, sat, face. And read the next line “... apologized for squashing the father of her children.”

I don’t know why I bother writing these blobs of tripe when that sort of stuff is being reported daily from back at my old trailer park.