Someone in my family has been hospitalized recently (out now), and the other day when I came home I found a bag from KFC on the counter. My heart sank.
A little backstory first. At least around here, it’s a tradition among my family to bring tons of food when someone dies. Not like “party hearty” food, but specifically to help the immediately affected family members out by not having to cook when there’s already so much other stuff going on. When we lost many people over a short time a few years ago, our fridge and table was gushing with food. My parents didn’t have reason to cook for over a month, perhaps quite literally.
But where does KFC come into this picture? As far as I can remember, at least one person would buy bucketloads of fried chicken every time something like this came up. It wasn’t always KFC I don’t think, but every time someone died, we would always eat some form of the staple southern comfort food.
There was one occasion where I think we had at least four or five boxes of 30-piece chicken sets, complete with potatoes, gravy, cole slaw, and pretty much everything that comes with one of those family meal deals, but in a larger quantity.
I took hold of my thoughts when I walked into that kitchen, and as soon as I saw it I associated the “KFC” badge and the red color to mean the worst had happened. It shook me a bit, and then I found out she was still in the hospital and it was just a quick stop by my mom to get me dinner.
It’s a classic example of conditioning. I’m so used to seeing that type of food associated with a bad event, that it becomes second nature quickly. It’s a strange association too. It’s not like “blue=depressed” or “green=healthy”, but instead a fast food conglomerate associated with one of the few remaining hurdles of humanity.
And yes, to a tangent, I said I was going veg, but we’ve been in extenuating circumstances and I’m not sure how to manage it. But even so, the KFC fries are really good.
Hmm.. so I just looked up “parable” and it’s a story with a moral at the end, so…eat more KFC fries.
