So last night I decided to engage upon an experiment, in which I traumatized myself good and proper into never eating KFC again. See, the trouble with the Colonel's chicken is that you eat it, swear never to eat that shit again, then a couple months later you go past, smell all the sweet, sweet MSG in the air and think to yourself 'it smells soooo good... surely it wasn't as bad as I remember' and so you go back and continue the cycle of abuse.
Into the establishment I stroll, along with Annah who had come down to Wellington to visit the new flat for the weekend. I order the hot n' spicy fillet box, which comes with chips, potato and gravy and a drink. I order a pepsi max, and because I hate myself, I ask for the up size on the chips.
The food comes late. The chips are a few optimistic degrees above room temp, somewhat soggy and caked in chemical seasoning. The chicken however is burning hot and gets progressively hotter as I eat it, like some kind of awful hell-furnace meat. I have to juggle it about in my hands; I swear these fillets are radioactive. The spice doesn't taste like any kind of natural chilli or anything else... it's a chemical tang on the tastebuds that perfectly compliments the watery 'potato' and 'gravy' that I dip it into in order to cool it down. The drink is a pepsi max and provides just the last bit of bloaty over-carbonated horror I needed to rev up the churning mix of chemical reactions thats taking place in my stomach.
This meal was everything I hoped for; a test of determination and a reminder that sticking to a diet of real food for several months has raised my expectations to a level I'm happy with. As I turned to painfully waddle out onto the street and perhaps cry a little, I turned and read the slogan that was on the wall in large embossed letters.
"Real Life, Real Food".
You can't make this shit up.
