Alaina Mabaso's Blog

The following image, snapped and stored in my phone, has haunted me for almost two years.

Some well-meaning designer of signage at the take-out breakfast and lunch chain known as Au Bon Pain, contrary to the restaurant’s intentions, has seriously dampened my craving for chicken salad. And I love chicken salad.

There is so much wrong with this sandwich board.

First, it violates my personal objections to restaurant logos that cheesily anthropomorphize the food they serve. For example, if you specialize in seafood, don’t have a cartoon of a grinning, waving crab on your signage. The crabs aren’t happy about being eaten; pretending otherwise doesn’t make me more likely to eat at your restaurant.

Second, for unknown reasons I’ve always been bothered by the artistic license that turns birds’ wing-feathers into hands.

But worst of all, I’m assuming that the marketers of Au Bon Pain want me to purchase their chicken salad based on the endorsement of a giant molting chicken who, with evident relish, is about to eat a sandwich made of its own flesh.

Who’s hungry?