Continuing the train of thought from last week, I’d like to talk about a subject very close to my heart: my stomach.

Let’s get this straight: food is awesome. If for some reason you disagree with this statement, you are either a cow who has learned to read or a commie.

Food is, quite simply, amazing.  It can cheer us up when we’re down and brighten up an already sunny day.  I think the most eloquent analogy for food is that it is like someone who is willing to have sex with you anytime.  It is never choosy or picky or too tired or annoyed or wants to go see Glee on stage before giving you a happy break.  It is only ever too glad to march right into your mouth whenever and show you a good time.

OM NOM NOM NOM NOM

While there are some foods – such as the delicious, delicious cookies above – which most everyone can agree are delicious, there are, on the other side of that coin, certain culinary pariahs.  Which brings us to the point of this article.

Day to day, I am haunted by my penchant for these edible outcasts, those foods which the masses deride but that I find so extremely tasty.  Let us call them my Maggie Gyllenhaal Foods.

Let’s start with Arby’s because that’s what I’m eating now.

As an American, I’ve had fast food ever since I could start to chew solids.  Given that there was an Arby’s within a reasonable radius of our house, this joint was frequented many a time.  I always thought their food was pretty good, especially their Roast Beef Sandwich (seen above).  Succulent and juicy and moist…

But then the world had to weigh in on it.  Here I was, minding my own business, loving my Roast Beef Sammie, when an episode of the Simpsons aired, with this clip:

As a young child, my entire world crumbled before my eyes, much like this building in Inception:

Arby’s… is bad?  I couldn’t compute; I didn’t understand.  This thing I adored – everyone hated it?  And that wasn’t the only time.  I began to have dreams where everyone fucking hated Arby’s except for me and I had to defend the last Roast Beef Sandwich… or eat it myself.

And so Arby’s fell by the wayside for years, a victim of the media’s tight grip on my young brain.  Then, one fateful day, I was driving through my old hood and saw that same ol’ joint standing in the same ol’ place and the rest is history.  Now, I always get the 4 for 7 deal.  That’s four sandwiches, just in case you though I was some fatass who would eat seven sandwiches.

Now you’re gonna think I’m crazy, but another one of my Maggie Gyllenhaal Foods is McDonald’s, namely the Big Mac.

I don’t think I need to elaborate on how the general public seems to view McD’s. Just take a look at Super Size Me or nutritional facts.

Yes, maybe the special sauce is bloody semen and maybe the meat isn’t 100% animal.  Whatever, jaded Internet, whatever.  All I know is that when my tongue – the one you’ve all deemed soooo pedestrian – tastes a bite of that mass-produced manna from heaven, it tells my brain it is awesome.

I can’t help it.  I grew up with it and maybe that’s what’s affecting my taste, but couple that with the fries, still hot and fresh – holy Hay-sus.  This song’s for you, Mac:

And just because of the rule of threes and the fact that I find it hard to think of something else, I also kind of miss Taco Bell’s tacos.

I think their meat is kind of good, especially if I don’t think about what’s in it, kind of like sex that’s better when you’re blindfolded.

DIALOGUE TIME, FRIENDS!

What’s some of your Maggie Gyllenhaal Foods?  And please, someone make me feel not so alone about my tastes.

Oh, and random, but I fucking hate raisins.