The great Hairy Chicken Incident of 2014

"UUUUgghh!" The customer dropped her chicken wing, disgusted.

"Problem?" A manager asked, eventually.

"These wings have a hair stuck in the breading!  And... there's another!  And another!  Ewww!"

"May I see your receipt?"  The manager asked.  "Ahh.  I see the problem.  We should have charged you extra for the NON-hairy variety."

"But..."

"Eight dollars, please."

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Some of that was fiction, but some of it is true.

Remember a few months ago when I blogged about McDonalds' "Mighty Wings"?
At the time, I had no plans of trying them because they were just too expensive.

Well, recently they re-introduced them for a slightly cheaper price.
 I figured "well, ok..." and tried some last Wednesday (March 5th).

Upon inspection (and after I'd already taken a few bites), I realized the breading was covered with hairs.

Seriously.  Little hairs sticking out from the breading, cooked right into it.

I called a manager over and showed her the pile of hair-covered breading bits.

Some of the hairs were so long you could pick them up and the breading would dangle from it.

Gross.

She said "Oh, ok.  I'll make a note of that."

She took the tray away, and nothing else was done.

I went back a few days later (Saturday, March 8th) to see if the lead manager (Rob) had been made aware of it, and hopefully to find some sort of resolution.  

Talked to another manager, who was completely unaware of the problem.  It hadn't been written in the manager's log, so no one had "made a note" of anything at all.

He apologized for the hairy chicken issue and suggested I handwrite a note for Rob.

He reassured me that Rob would get the note.

Soooo, I wrote a note.  I included my snail mail address as well as two different e-mail addresses.

Didn't hear anything back, so today (Thursday, March 13th) I went back to check on things.
Talked to two completely different managers, neither of which had read anything in the log about anyone reporting any kind of hairy chicken problem.

They didn't think Rob had gotten the note and had no idea about any of this.

I explained the whole thing all over again, for the THIRD time.

I wasn't a jerk about it, but still tried to accurately convey the "EEEWWWW" factor.

These guys KNOW me because I've been a regular customer there for so long.  We were on a first-name basis and they'd greet me whenever I came in (sort of like "Norm" from Cheers).
Rob is a nice guy.  They're all nice people there, usually.

So it was frustrating that this kept getting ignored.

This evening they gave me my money back and gave me a card for a free (hopefully non-hair-covered) sandwich.  Yay, I guess, but it still seems odd and dissappointing that I had to talk about it THREE separate times-- and still never heard back from the guy in charge.

I hoped for something along the lines of "Wow, got your letter and I agree this was gross.  Clearly the people who send frozen wings to us also have a side job in a barber shop.  Very sorry.  Please don't stop being a regular customer.  We loved you almost as much as we loved your money.  Come back.  To show my deep sorrow and regret, here is a notarized certificate redeemable for three dinner dates with Mike Mills, along with an autographed collection of every R.E.M. album ever made.  Oh, and here's some DNA from each R.E.M. member, including the drummer who retired in 1996.  Also, here's some sweet-and-sour sauce."

My needs are small.