Remember when every Wendy's restaurant in the country had identical Formica-covered tabletops covered in a print that consisted of facsimiles of old newspaper advertisements? In among the ads for hoopskirts, buttonhooks and the like was one that simply said "Torpid Liver". That was all.

For a while, it was a mystery to me whether "torpid liver" was a product for sale or an ailment to be cured. So, after reading the words "Torpid Liver" on a Wendy's tabletop for the 357th time I did a little research and found that it was an ailment. At that point I felt extremely slighted because Wendy's had chosen to use only the headline from the advertisement while omitting the rest of the ad copy which doubtlessly extolled the merits of some product that would cure those afflicted with torpid liver and, though I didn't suffer from torpid liver at the time, it wasn't impossible that I might be so afflicted at some time in the future. Did the Wendy's people not realize that lack of the information they had so callously omitted could be a life-or-death matter for some future sufferer of torpid liver?

I would like to say that, in response to Wendy's lack of foresight, I have boycotted their restaurants for years, but it would be a lie. It really didn't make a damned bit of difference.