Taco Bell, much like the night of binge drinking the night before, exists for one distinct purpose: being totally awesome when drunk in every way imaginable, but leaving you to wake up the next morning, running to the bathroom, leaving behind the only evidence of the night before in the form of wrappers and odors. You will blame alcohol. You will blame Taco Bell. You will swear both away for the rest of all of time until repeating the process again in a week or two.

Through the franchise’s history, The Bell guides us through endless drunken binges in the path of Fast Food Enlightenment with the same core ingredients (beef, hard/soft shells, cheddar, lettuce, tomato, sour cream, beans) and throwing in a few unique tastes here and there.

Back in the Glory Days of the 1980’s, fast food became privvy to the concept of nutritional value of their products. Until in 1986 they reached the pinnacle with their first true shameless attempt at being perceived as a healthy choice to compete with the Filet-o-Fish: the Taco Bell Seafood Salad.

Here is the (imagined) background on the topic: on a humid, coke-fueled evening in Miami, circa 1985, eight Taco Bell execs gathered around their semi-circle Taco Table to concoct a plan to compete with the Fish Sandwiches of the world’s burger chain late-night-make-you-hate-yourself-tomorrow-morning menu. They devised the Seafood Salad, because fish sounds healthy, and because they hate you.

Now, seafood salad doesn’t sound all that bad on the surface – but would you trust the company to produce quality seafood products when the quality of its beef is constantly under scrutiny?

Smells a little fishy to me, and the product didn’t sail for very long. And those crappy puns were intended, thank you very much.