I hear the gleeful screams of the townsfolk, the jovial cries from the town crier, and the excited heel-clicking quick talk from the street urchins. I see the signals in the sky, I can feel it in the waters, and I can hear it whispered in the winds by Saruman himself.  The McDonald’s McRib is back.

I’ve never had one of these McRib sandwiches before as I don’t really keep my ear on the ground when it comes to Ronald’s fine eatery; but nations of people seem to instantly and collectively orgasm when they hear the word ‘McRib’.

I decided to go and finally try one out during my lunch break from work. After throwing my coat on and bidding farewell to my uninterested co-workers, I set upon my voyage to the Golden Arches – the promised land. I was excited; finally I’d have something in common with people – something to assimilate myself with the ‘water cooler’ talk of today’s age. “Why yes, the McRib is a fantastic work of art.” I could hear myself say it already.

I ducked and weaved the busy streets as if was on a police assault course, pushing forwards towards the nearest McDonald’s to place my order down on the predictably grease-filmed counter. Once I arrived, I stood there with a ‘what the f*ck else do you think I’m going to order now that the McRib is back?’ expression etched on my face and before long, the pleasant young lady reappeared with my tray of food and slid it over with an achingly forced smile stapled on her face. I could almost see the divine light of the universe bathing my hallowed meal. Glorious.

I plopped myself down on a faux-leather chair and pushed the last four groups of people’s trash on to the floor, which was made of garbage anyway, so whatever.

The first thing to assault one of my senses was the smell once I opened the box. It evoked smells of a drag race gone awry. Burnt rubber, fear, and twisted metal carnage. It just smelt wrong.

I inspected the sandwich as if it was the prime piece of evidence in a murder case (possibly mine. I’ll let you know); poking at the sad bread, the dehydrated fingernail like onions, and the iPhone 6 sized slab of ‘meat’ – still the smell was making my stifle vomit. I picked up the warm object of such public desire and thought of how close I was to the social circles that I so badly want to be a part of, then bit in and chewed away.

…I don’t want to be in those social circles.

The ‘meat’ part tasted as if they had boiled humans into a thick jelly, added PVA glue to the mix, shouted hateful remarks at it and then once heated, covered it in BBQ sauce made of twigs and riverbed mud. ‘Reheated burnt car tire’ is the note I had written on my phone during that awful moment. I managed 2 bites of the McRib before gulping at my partially flat coke as if I had almost drowned and it was my air. I stuffed a fistful of Mcdonald’s lightly salted cardboard cutout fries just for ‘sustenance’ and promptly left.

I believed in the McRib blindly…foolishly. Hoodwinked by those crafty marketeers, and hell, even the by the whole entire world. I’ve eaten some shit in my life, but never have I eaten something which truly could pass as shit itself.