“I’m fine,” she said. “I’ve already had a sammich. Go ahead
and get something for yourself.”
I used that as an excuse to have one more beer while I
thought about my dinner.
I didn’t feel like making anything, there was no bar food I wanted to take home and I never, ever get fast food. Well, hardly ever. I
will admit that sometimes I have a craving for KFC. The chicken tastes okay
even if it isn’t good for me, the taters are mostly edible and the biscuits are
really good—especially with honey. Of course I no longer get the KFC honey
because it’s not honey anymore. Rather, it’s something they call “Honey Sauce.”
Honey Sauce is that packet of stuff they give you to put on your biscuits only
if you ask for it. According to this guy, Honey Sauce is a full 7% honey with the rest mostly corn syrup, and you know
what I think about corn syrup. I have no idea what the last few ingredients are. Maybe a secret blend of eleven
herbs and spices. I dunno. But whatever’s in it, it doesn’t taste like honey,
so I stopped getting it years ago. I always, always keep a stash of real honey
just for these emergency occasions.
So I headed off to KFC, pleased with myself for my
forethought and looking forward to a meal of legs, thighs and breasts. But when
I got there I discovered that something had happened. KFC had changed their
menu. They’d lost their bones.
I used to order chicken only, with a few biscuits and maybe
a side of taters. But according to their new menu, I no longer had that option.
What I had instead was a choice of various selections of boneless, skinless
chicken—what Wendy’s Hamburgers used to call “parts is parts."
In fairness, they still offered a small selection of bone-in
skin-on chicken but it was harder to find on the menu. It occurred to me that
KFC might be planning on phasing out bone-in chicken. Turns out I was right:
I guess KFC is afraid the new generation of fast food
addicts might accidentally discover that chickens used to be living, breathing
animals. Dawg forbid that little Aiden or sweet Gabriella ever find out that
animals have been slaughtered to sate their gluttony. And can you imagine
precious Sloan and young Logan biting into a honking big-ass drumstick? I can hear
their tiny high-pitched shrieks now.
“Skin! It’s got skin! And…and…and…booooooooooooooooooooones.
MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMY!”
Oh, the horror.
Well, I’m not gonna hang around to hear that, KFC. It hurts
to tell you this, but chickens got bones, so you and I are through.
No. Don’t cry. It’s my fault, not yours. I simply can’t
adjust to your insane need to take food and turn it into something that isn’t.
Don’t worry, you’ll find someone new. But as for me, I’ll go back to making my
own chicken. It’s better than yours anyhow. And I still have my stash of real
honey.