A dark beginning to the new year has brought about tragic news for the North State: Arby’s is no longer in Shasta County. The return of KFC to Redding last year meant wonderful news for those suffering from special recipe withdrawal, but tragedy has followed upon mirth as the dearth of chicken addicts has been supplanted with a glutton of Arby’s addicts. They now wander the streets, shaking, twitching, craving that singularly perfect Arby’s sauce they took for granted. Randal Tuesday is one such addict.
“I don’t know what to do,” Randal said with tears in his eyes. “You don’t know what I would give right now to be holding a half-pound classic, Arby’s sauce spilling over the side. It was the sauce that made it special.” When describing the succulent curly fries, Randal broke down crying.
Tears for some, rage for others: fast food connoisseur and local curmudgeon Terrence McCanders was seen on his hands and knees pounding the concrete with bloodied fists. “It was the perfect fast food joint! The only place where the meat has flavor and the Coke Zero flows like honey!” Raising his hands to the sky he wailed and gnashed his teeth. He was last seen near the former Shopko with rent garments and a sack cloth over his head.
McConnell Foundation officials have teamed up with Bethel to form a new clinic assisting those experiencing Arby’s withdrawal symptoms. “We’re making regular runs to Red Bluff and back every day, as many times as we can,” states a Bethel spokesman. “It’s the Lord’s work, really. We need to keep the supply high at first before we wean them off simply because the human body cannot tolerate an immediate removal of Arby’s remarkable blend of spices that are not quite spicy, not quite sweet but somehow, almost magically, in-between.”
When asked if the Bethel spokesman was getting high on the supply, he glanced away and said, “No comment.”