If Only We Could Identify the Addictive Chemical Which Makes Me Crave it Fortnightly

My position as a massively influential member of the media is not a mantle I bear lightly. With a keystroke, I could release the obsequious ScotticusFinch horde and likely topple even the most stubborn of institutions, yet I am tempered by perspective. No failing bank, no Haitian earthquake, and no case of kitsch larceny had yet been dire enough for me to fully wield the awesome power of my pulpit.

But that threshold has been breached. Friends, there is a chicken-wing shortage in America.

According to USA Today, skyrocketing demand for the ambrosial avian appendages fueled a 39% increase in the wholesale price of wings over last year.

The primary factor driving up wing prices is the growing number of restaurants, including many national chains, that are adding wings to their offerings, says Richard Lobb, spokesman for the Washington-based chicken industry trade group the National Chicken Council.

(On a side note, the National Chicken Council once mistakenly booked the same convention space as the American Egg Board, and the two groups spent six weeks trying to decide who should go first.)

Lobb says it's not a matter of simply raising more chickens. The nation's chicken producers turned out 9 billion birds in 2009, he says. Other than for wings, the recession has slowed demand, and the overall price for chicken has been soft. "As expensive as wings are, they cannot carry the entire bird," he says.

How true, both ornithologically and metaphorically. The problem is vexing. While I'm pheasantly pleased (Man, I'm on a roll!) to be able to grab a box of mediocre wings from every Rally's, Little Caesars, and KFC, I also have to face the reality that 20¢ Wing Night at Buffalo Wild Wings is as likely to make a comeback as Rod Blagojevich.

Ken Moran, owner of Rochester, NY's "Jeremiah's Tavern", remembers the halcyon days of cheap chicken:

"Chicken wings once were so cheap. ...It was an attempt to use all the parts of the bird. Now it's reversed. They've gotten pretty crazy in terms of popularity."

Most of you have probably already noticed the end-around that restaurants have been running:

To offset wing prices, numerous restaurants are adding "boneless chicken wings" made of breast meat, he says.

"The boneless wing is a much higher profit margin and it also attracts a lot more people who don't care to eat things on bones," he says.

"Boneless wings". Ever heard a boat salesman say he has a great deal on "wheel-less cars", or a paper company selling reams of "wordless books"? Still, if it lowers the price of my delicious dark-meat treats (Can I say that?), then KFC can call its spicy breast chunks whatever it wants. Until they start taxing napkins, I'll be at the bar.

(See the unparalleled scene that inspired the headline here.)