In this year's annual Mercury Halloween Dress-up issue, our costume is The Troutdale Trout—a fictional community newspaper in a somewhat fictional Troutdale, Oregon. Please check it out, it's funny.

That being said, one of the running jokes in the piece is how the town of Troutdale is utterly dominated and seemingly controlled by their favorite restaurant, Chik-fil-A. The joke was kind of chosen at random, but Chik-fil-A is also buried deep in my cerebellum—primarily because I crammed those filets into my craw every weekend when I was a mall-crawling teen.

But get this: James Deeley, our senior account executive, just came barreling into my office to inform me, "This Troutdale Trout thing is bull-oney! THERE ARE NO CHIK-FIL-A's IN OREGON!" And, after informing me he once walked two miles while visiting Texas to eat at a Chik-fil-A, he then sent me proof of their absence in our state: The closest Chik-fil-A is 343.91 miles away in Boise, Idaho.

Now, while I maintain that the Troutdale Trout is entirely fictitious, I still feel the need to apologize to any Chik-fil-A lovers who might find themselves walking to the real Troutdale in order to sample those delicious filets. DON'T DO IT. THEY AREN'T REALLY THERE.

And if you're thinking, "Heeeeeey, maybe I'LL buy a Chik-fil-A franchise, and make a biiiiiiillion dollars!" DON'T DO IT. Because if you click this link, there's a good chance you'll never eat there again—even it were in Troutdale.

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