The KFC One Night Stand: Conclusion - January 5, 2007

The Girlfriend looked up at me. "Do you think Candy and Billy would be up for KFC?"

"I don't know. They're your friends. Are they KFC kind of people?" In anticipation of The Girlfriend saying yes even though they were doing the South Beach thing in the run-up to their wedding, I reached over for my laptop to do a store locator search on the KFC website.

"I think so. They're from the Midwest. Fried foods are part of our heritage."

"Aren't they on a diet?" I queried.

"Famous Bowls are totally pro-South Beach." I wanted to believe what she was saying. So did she.

"Totally. It's all protein. Chicken. Corn. Cheese. Gravy." I counted them off on my fingers.

"Exactly!" she said, with the enthusiasm of an addict being actively enabled.

We wouldn't even acknowledge the mashed potatoes. Yes, they are the first ingredient to go into the bowl. And yes, they are the base upon which the rest of the Famous Bowl is built; but they are not its essence. They don't matter. The mashed potatoes are not what the KFC Famous Bowl is really all about. Their importance is thoroughly overstated.

This must be what it feels like to be a Holocaust Denier.

I plugged Candy and Billy's zip code into the website's store locator. Jackpot. There were 4 KFCs within a mile and a half of their house. We were surprised at first--since there isn't two of anything in our immediate vicinity--but then we remembered that they lived on the gentrifying edge of the hood in Southeast.

For those of you unfamiliar with the nation's capital, The District is divided into 4 quadrants: Northwest, Northeast, Southwest, and Southeast. Its four corners meet at The Capitol and were established where they were, as far as I can tell, for two reasons: (1) to give all the white people a nice big safe place to live and go out (Northwest) and (2) to give all the cabbies that hang out around The Capitol and Union Station the opportunity to fuck the rest of us right in the ass with the city's quadrant-based fare system.

Northwest, where I live, is the biggest quadrant. Southeast, where Candy and Billy live, is the poorest (blackest). No wonder there are so many KFCs in their area. I was tempted to do a Yahoo! yellow pages search for liquor stores and check cashing places in their zip code, too, but I thought that might be a little presumptuous.

After much showering and dawdling, we got to their house near the end of the first quarter of the early games; just about the time you want to start thinking about what to order if you want the food to arrive at halftime. We weren't out of our coats and on the couch more than 10 minutes before the KFC Famous Bowl ad sparkled to life when Fox cut to commercial during another ill-conceived challenge from a middling NFC team's idiot coach who has made a habit of challenging calls simply because he doesn't like the result of the play. I would make the effort to remember which coach it was but, honestly, the preceding sentence describes at least 5 teams in the NFC so, in the end, does it really matter? I don't think so, either.

As if on cue, Candy says "what are you guys thinking, food-wise? Are you hungry?"

The Girlfriend and I looked at each other. Eyebrows raised, Cheshire grins emerged, and all hope of self-control disappeared.

"We wanna try that KFC Famous Bowl thing!" The Girlfriend blurted it out with uncommon zeal. She sounded just like my 7 year old goddaughter when she couldn't wait to tell The Girlfriend during our first visit together that I used to have another girlfriend who was blond. The not-so-secret secret was bursting to get out and she couldn't hold it in any longer. That's what The Girlfriend sounded like when she informed Candy and Billy that we, not she, wanted a KFC Famous Bowl.

I sat silently with my beer, pressed into the cushioned back of their wing-backed chair. I didn't want to deny what The Girlfriend said (because it would have been a lie), but I did not want to aid and abet either (because I'd have a whole one plus a couple pieces of Corn-on-the-Cob and a biscuit). Plus, I expected Candy and Billy to put the kibosh on KFC since there is no way a rational human being could finesse the Famous Bowl into a complimentary South Beach dietary selection.

Candy and Billy had been good for weeks on South Beach and they looked it--slimmer and trimmer than ever. Vetoing KFC would be a no-brainer for them. It clearly didn't jive with their dietary requirements and they had strength in numbers. Billy wasn't going to fall off the wagon if Candy wasn't. He wanted to look just as good in his suit at the altar as she was going to look in her dress.

When Billy gave Candy the "hmm, I hadn't even thought about that option before and it would be a good idea to mix it up and treat ourselves a little so we don't burn out on the diet too quickly" look, I knew it was all over.

"I guess we could split one," Candy replied. Billy didn't even have to say anything. He said all he had to with his eyes.

"Their corn on the cob is good too. And they have new grilled chicken wraps too now, I think." Billy's knowledge of the revamped KFC menu was impressive. Apparently, The Girlfriend and I were not the only ones who had browsed the KFC website recently.

Candy felt the situation starting to spiral away from us and I think she tried to dampen the growing enthusiasm when she asked, "Is there even a KFC aroun--"

"Yes. It's three blocks from here. I'll drive." Fuck. The words escaped my lips before I knew what I was doing.

"Well, okay then. I guess we're doing KFC. What are we all having?" The Girlfriend and I looked at Candy like she'd just farted in her hand and tried to smell it.

The order was going to be "Two KFC Famous Bowls and two 'whatever the hell you guys want we don't give a shit's. "

We had not just fallen off the wagon, we'd jumped off and hit the ground running. Worse still, the two people closest to us--the two people to whom we could look for strength and fortitude in times such as these--didn't pull us back from the edge. They gave us a shove.

Billy came with me to the KFC closest to their house. He and I love finding new shortcuts through the streets of D.C., and he'd found one he wanted to show me. The shortcut wasn't bad, but I think the real reason he wanted to come along was to see if there was anything on the menu he wanted that he could eat on the ride back without telling Candy.

At the last moment, pressed against the counter, his mouth inches from the bulletproof Plexiglas partition that separated the Colonel's original recipe from the clamoring masses, Billy balked. There would be no surreptitiously ordered and eaten 3-piece meal. There would only be the 3 KFC Famous Bowls. One for me. One for The Girlfriend. And one for them to split.

The drive home was brief, but I spent all of it sizing up the Famous Bowl without actually ruining the surprise by looking inside the bag. I lifted the bag and nodded approvingly at its heft. I breathed in deeply through my nose several times, like a fast food sommelier.

When we got back to Candy and Billy's, I made a beeline for their silverware drawer. A glorious concoction, such as the Famous Bowl promised to be, should never be eaten with plastic. I grabbed myself a teaspoon so I would be compelled to take smaller bites and, thus, extend the dining experience.

I returned to the living room where The Girlfriend had removed the Bowls from the bag and placed them on the coffee table in front of their respective owners. I picked up my Bowl and marveled at its weight and its warmth. The bowl itself is constructed of sturdy black plastic, not flimsy Styrofoam or Dixie cardstock. I couldn't see through the clear plastic cover because the steam rising off the flavor bonanza beneath it had created a canopy of fog and water droplets, not unlike the morning sky along the banks of the great Amazon River.

For the record, I have been to the Super Bowl, the World Series, countless playoff games, a no-hitter, the NCAA tournament, the Rose Bowl, and the birth of two of my cousins and I had never been this excited.

I slowly peeled off the lid and gazed expectantly down at something for which I had yearned since it began selling at any of my participating local KFC franchises.

It was the perfect fast food equivalent of Taryn, the first girl I ever met off the internet. It was nothing like its pictures and, despite having numerous qualities that I enjoyed, it was nothing but a soupy, salty mess.

I stared at this...this...thing hoping that someone was playing a practical joke on me. It was no joke. This was the KFC Famous Bowl.

The mashed potatoes were thin--almost translucent--and constituted at least 60% of the bowl's contents. The gravy, or at least what I assume was gravy, sat in a congealing pool directly on top of the potatoes and UNDERNEATH THE CHICKEN AND CORN!

KFC Bowl.jpg
I would have given my left arm for a Bowl that looked like this

Are you kidding me?! The commercial clearly states that the gravy goes over both the chicken AND the corn, and the delicious shredded cheese is added last as a sort of savory garnish.

Don't even get me started on the cheese, though. This was no flavorful blend of three of my favorite cheeses. This was that infinitesimally shredded white American shit that Kraft makes orange by rolling it around in the Mac n Cheese powder dust that floats in the air until production halts for the day and it settles on the factory floor.

The chicken and the corn were, no surprise, unremarkable. They were supposed to be the heart and soul of the Famous Bowl and, on this day, they simply did not come to play.

I was angry, frustrated, disappointed, betrayed. It took everything I had not to take it outside and hurl it into the street. This thing really was like Taryn. KFC could change its name from the Famous Bowl to Taryn, and I wouldn't be able to tell the difference.

Sitting on the couch in Candy and Billy's living room, I found myself in a bit of a pickle. Do I grin and bear this culinary cocktail of disappointment? Or do I push it aside and risk going hungry, despite being absolutely famished?

After much vacillation on my part, I did with the KFC Famous Bowl what I did with Taryn. I devoured as much as I could stand, threw it out before I was really done, and never spoke of it again.

Posted by nils at 11:09 AM

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Comments

This might be the funniest thing I've read this year. Ok, change that to OVER the PAST year.

Posted by: Tombrey at January 5, 2007 12:40 PM

Everybody experiences a transitional moment like the one that you have just described. When we finally see the world through the jaundiced eye of an adult and realise that it is a place where our simplest dreams and expectations are destined to crumble to dust the moment we allow them contact with reality.

I can recall a more innocent time when I could not conceive of Huey Lewis & The News ever releasing a bad single. That was before 'Give Me The Keys' sprayed rancid jets of foul-smelling, old man's piss, all over the sacred memory of 'Hip To Be Square'.

The only rational response is to begin dressing entirely in black. Paint the walls of your apartment a similar tone, then glue the curtains shut. Paint your girlfriend black as well. If she complains tell her: "This is how I see the world".

Try listening to The Cure. Robert Smith knows your pain. He has ravens living in his hair. They have been trained to recite passages from Edgar Allen Poe and steal ice cream from small, emotionally vulnerable children.

Those bastards at KFC have made you suffer in ways that are incalculable, even by the IBM super computer that I am currently fucking. Become a Goth and give some of that misery back to the world. It's what made me the fine specimen of manhood that I am today.

Posted by: backwards7 at January 5, 2007 01:09 PM

Cool story, man.

Posted by: NiteShok at January 5, 2007 10:38 PM

Great story, very true to DC. I used to live at 5th and Constitution NE. The Koreans that owned our local bodega hated my roommates and I because we would come in a half hour before they closed, God forbid. Of course we were usually pretty smashed from a drinking session at Hawk & Slut or Cap Lounge. Still, fuck 'em.

Posted by: CAPSLegend at January 23, 2007 03:04 AM

It is with a heavy heart that I type this. I am afraid you have had a substandard experience with the KFC Famous Bowl. This would be akin to judging all women by the fat girl in the third grade who chased you down at recess, sat on you and made you kiss her. The KFC Famous Bowl, alternately Crack Bowl or Krack Filled Concoction can made to be the wonderment shown on tv, with tender nuggets of chicken and sweet kernels of corn swimming in an ocean of gravy overlying clouds of mashed potatos, all topped by a melted mass of cheese.
I have consumed many of these mana-bowls and I urge you to give them another chance, perhaps in a district a bit more affluent where the workers understand that great trust KFC has put in them to render such a masterpiece.

Posted by: TheAllSeeingBeing at January 26, 2007 07:01 PM