I think each one of us has a favorite bit of evidence that rich, powerful people can be utterly mad.

It might be the economics of donating millions to hospitals and then underpaying nannies. Or the habit of freezing themselves into a future where all their friends, enemies, and stockbrokers will be dead. Or paying to swallow fish eggs. Whatever it is, this treasured observation is quite personal.

For me, it’s a billboard. The company’s rather well-known, so let’s preserve a respectful anonymity and call it O’Donalds.

Like a sensible political system, the billboard is cleaved in two. The right side features an array of four-foot high Chicken O’Nuggets. No, hold on, that isn’t the crazy part. Just business as usual. O’Donalds has bought the right to inflict the sight of their product on morning commuters. That part’s routine.

Then there’s the left side.

(Sensitive readers may want to stop now.) Ready? It’s a woman, healthy and fit, outside. With a tent. On a mountainside.

Four-foot O’Nuggets. Joyous camper. Together.

Can anyone, anyone, explain this connection? It’s like seeing “War Is Peace” or “Black is Fuschia” or “1 + 1 = Bubbacious.” I try to put the two things together, but they don’t fit, and I cut myself. Between me and the folks at O’Donald’s, one of us is crazy.

What is that woman so happy about? Did she just bite a human-size version of the O’Nugget and leap for joy? If so, where is it? All I see on her side are blue sky, trees, fresh air—pretty much everything that doesn’t go with a squat O’Donalds. Maybe she carted the nuggets up with her, but even the most avid O’Donalder might hesitate to eat an O’Nugget once the grease dried. Much less leap for joy afterwards.

But there they are together, every day, as the world drives past. Fit woman in nature—assault of Chicken O’Nuggets. What’s going on here?

Wait, maybe I have it. Maybe (despite her hip outfit) she’s always lived in the forest. Maybe she’s looking at … the four-foot high O’Nuggets! Even I, a seasoned suburbanite, would be startled if a crowd of giant O’Nuggets came crashing through the trees. Perhaps she’s never even seen O’Nuggets, normal or Super-duper-sized. Maybe she’s an awed savage, maybe she’s leaping at their approach in ecstatic worship.

Not that I say savage as a criticism. No, Rousseau would be proud. Given the true oddness of a monstrosity like an O’Nugget in the cosmic scheme of things, I understand the temptation to worship. Makes more sense than eating the thing.

Okay, good. There is an explanation. For in my darker moments, I’ve wondered if the ad folk haven’t gone nuts. Whether some lord of lard, deep in the bowels of the O’Donalds headquarters, hasn’t chosen a grotesque new strategy.

After all, O’Nuggets may be a tough sell these days. Mad cow, obesity, kid diabetes…slowly, slowly, slowly, we might be inching towards awareness.

O’Donalds has to do something. And they may seriously want to shoehorn this into your mind: If you eat a bunch of O’Nuggets, you will magically wind up camping and thin.

Typing it makes me angry all over again. This is a new low. Other ads don’t cram things together that are diametrically opposed. Sure, drinking beer won’t give you attractive friends, but models do sometimes get together and drink beer and all smile at the same time. A car ad might feature an improbably cute woman, but there is a slim chance that somewhere, someday, somehow, a real woman, trained to regard your contraption as worth working years for, might instantly want to date you. Right after you win the lottery.

But camping and fast food? It’s like saying, “If you shave your head, dip it in wax, and glue it into a helmet, you’ll have lustrous hair with full body!” In order to get the filthy O’Nugget, you have to stop camping, go back to civilization, and then put on weight. The two halves work against each other.

But through the magic of mental associations, BAM, there they are on the same billboard. No explanation required. Ta-da! We have now co-opted camping! If you can’t find time to camp, you can always go second best and eat deep-fried chicken! What a solution!

Is it a lie yet? When can the Platonic Idea of Camping sue for libel? I keep trying to think of a more insulting attack on my intelligence. Try it. See?

We thrash (and justly) over obscenities and falsities in advertising, but for me there also comes a point when a group’s bald, patronizing arrogance is reason enough not to get my money.

Of course, we could always give them the benefit of the doubt; the billboard is really an either-or. EITHER camp and be free OR come on down and slather on a few pounds. It’s a subliminal warning.

Or maybe it’s so subliminal they didn’t even realize it. Their tortured subconsciouses cried out in symbols to warn the rest of us.

Bottom line: if O’Nuggets are so great, why shirk the poignant contentment of an everyday satisfied customer? Why not show eater and eatee together? It works for those fancy restaurants that specialize in recognizable forms of meat. Why not O’Donald’s?

I imagine a jolly man, his enormous bulk settled into a booth decorated with spilled salt and a soda-stained straw wrapper. Spilled fries merrily blotch the tray paper with grease. His huge meal is lit cheerily by flourescent light and his expectant smile. From his physique it’s clear he eats here often, and there’s a space at the table for you.

If I ever, ever see a billboard like that, I’ll go get an Ecstatic Meal myself. I promise.