David Spates "Therefore I Am" Published Oct. 21, 2003

Would you trade liberty for a nap?

My favorite way to eat fried chicken nuggets is to have them dropped from the roof of a four-story building into my mouth. My wife prefers them dropped from only a three-story structure, but that's pretty impressive for a woman who's five-foot-nada. After a few emergency room trips to treat grease burns and one desperate tracheotomy to bypass a lodged nugget in her throat, our 2-year-old daughter now gleefully eats her chicken nuggets dropped from a one-story roof. Phil, our youngest, doesn't have any teeth yet, but you can already tell that he'll be a nugget-catching prodigy. I can see it in his eyes.

What do you mean, what do I mean?

How do you eat your chicken nuggets? From a plate? A bowl? A cardboard box, perhaps? You pansy. Haven't you seen the fast-food commercial in which hip, good-looking 20-year-olds are eating chicken nuggets dropped from the top of a building? I saw it a few days ago, and now I can't imagine eating my nuggets any other way. Once you try gravity-assisted dining, you'll never want to eat any other way. I'll go so far as to say the first chef to fully incorporate Newton's laws of motion into cooking will become fabulously successful.

The first time I ate a chicken nugget as it accelerated toward me, I was a little nervous. After all, the commercial did indicate that I shouldn't attempt such a fantastic edible trick. It wasn't a big, glaring warning, mind you, but in the form of three little words at the bottom of the screen -- "Do not attempt."

Do not attempt? What do they mean do not attempt? The entire commercial features fried chicken chunks falling from the sky! Does life get any better than that? And if hurtling chicken fragments weren't appealing enough, there are fashionable models flashing their angelic features with overly-whitened, yet obviously satisfied, smiles. I want in on that! Don't tell me not to attempt! I'll attempt, all right. You can bet your bottom nugget on that.

Mmmm, bottom nuggets ...

"Quick dear, get on the roof and drop these sizzling-hot nuggets into my mouth! They make it look so good on TV. Sure, I know they say do not attempt, but that message is intended for the world's idiots. That's not us. We're smart enough to do this without getting hurt. Just scamper up that ladder with those nuggets and let the Earth's gravitational pull take over. I'll be in the driveway waiting for the 20-year-old surgically-enhanced models to pull up."

I'm kidding, of course. (Gee, really, Dave?) We don't drop nuggets from our roof, tempting as it is.

The commercial is real enough, though. Chicken segments are dropped from buildings into people's mouths, and for some reason the restaurant company feels compelled to advise us, the dining public, that we shouldn't do that at home. Thanks for the warning.

Do you get the feeling that there are simply too many lawyers in this country? I am absolutely sure the restaurant company's lawyers reviewed the commercial and advised a warning be added, lest some moronic nugget-eater stroll to his garage for the step ladder. I have no evidence to back it up, but I'll bet I'm right. Maybe some pencilnecked attorney at Dewey, Cheatham and Howe wanted to rack up a few more billable hours and justify his corner office, so he boldly asserts that the restaurant had better include a warning.

"Listen to me and I'll make sure you never get hit with a big settlement," he probably told his chicken-scorching client. Good catch, pal.

We like to poke fun at lawyers, don't we? Apart from smark-aleck hack writers, they're probably our favorite target for ridicule. And as far as taking digs at lawyers is concerned, lawyers themselves are the worst of all. If you want to hear really good lawyer jokes, ask a lawyer. We've got a couple of attorneys in our family, and they always tell the best lawyer stories. No one can blast a lawyer like another lawyer.

Well, I'm no lawyer, but I have eaten chicken nuggets. I say that makes me more than qualified to poke a little fun at such a ridiculous commercial.

Oh, and if you're thinking of writing a column like this at home, my attorney has three words for you - "Do not attempt."

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David Spates is a Knoxville resident and Crossville Chronicle contributor whose column is published each Tuesday. He can be reached at davespates@chartertn.net.