You get what you deserve, my friend.

Let's be plain from the onset, folks: I am a monster. I never anticipated that my unspeakable monstrosity would progress - nearly unheeded, by the by - this far. Since it has, I urge each of you to do one of two things:

1) Cleave to your choicest of deities and whisper devotional supplications to him/her/it on my behalf. Oooh, with some incense. Yes, incense.

2) Sit back and watch the show.

Now that I have made this - disclaimer? preamble? - I must hasten to add that I, unattached to any faith or reason, believe that shit begets shit. It breeds, hidden and reeking, like two unnaturally pale, pimple-riddled teenagers grinding nasties under the Wildwood (NJ) Boardwalk. In July. At low tide.

To whit:

Once in a great while, Keith and I find ourselves in a predicament. Let's say that we've neglected our dishes - this clearly NEVER HAPPENS - and they have begun to, much like a primordial ocean, create new life and, as a by-product, undesirable odours. Let's also say that one of us has decided in a moment of profound sagacity that breakfast and lunch are optional meals and that, upon the supper hour, one becomes so ravenous that one contemplates consuming the two-year-old OPENED package of Scottish shortbread cookies one discovers in one's glove-box. Again, I need to stress: this did NOT happen to me. More than once.

Living in Nashville, we're then presented with some options. Provided that it's not past 6. Or if we need anything between January through May.

Pizza. Three places offer it; one is good, and the other two...well, let's just say that I've scraped tastier things off my windshield. I mean, for the love of God: gas station pizza?

McDonalds/Subway: Great if you want to poop the bed/have your sandwich prepared by high school kids who have no interest in whether you live, die, or decide to grow mushrooms in your crack.

Steak: I don't want to have to give handjobs behind the Circle K Dumpster for dinner expenses. Again.

Quaint, local restaurants with ambiance: See previous.

Nashville is roughly equidistant from Bloomington and Columbus, two largish towns that have the same sorts of amenities but with dramatically different presentation of said amenities. And by "different presentation" I mean "one is filled with insufferable students, one out of ten of whom is my client, and the other was under water for two weeks this spring." More often than not, we'll choose Columbus because a) IN 46 to Columbus is not nearly as twisty-turny as to Bloomington and b) I need a damn change of scenery. Also: Columbus has the Anti-Wal*Mart, but that's for another day.

ONE AWESOME DAY LAST WEEK

Leaving behind two sinkfuls of TOTALLY CLEAN DISHES, we arrived in Columbus. My eyes - unfocused as they were from all of the hunger - swam lazily and fell upon the neon marquee of an approaching KFC. I felt a tendril of hot breath caress my earlobe before it wended its way to my auditory canal, where it spake unto me.

"Wouldn't it be nice", it said lazily, "to sink a fork into a robust, juicy, lump of deep-fat-fried bird? Mmmm. So juicy. So filled with secret herbs. Also, you can get those unnatural mashed potatoes with that brown gravy. Yes. Gravy."

*I* was sold. Convincing Keith, though, remained a hurdle. What if - heavens prevent it! - he'd wanted to seek succor at Taco Bell? May the thought perish, I thought, and lie reeking in the ground.

Casually - and clearly without mentioning that I'd heard voices mere moments before - I ask Keith if he'd wish to procure our meal from the crispy dead bird factory. With nearly no hesitation, he maneuvers the car into the KFC parking lot. Score.

Upon entering, we realized that this particular KFC had - and here you'll all have to be strong - a buffet. The creature who greeted us (a woman with a very...um...masculine presence) presumed that we'd be asuck upon the buffet, and after a brief consultation, we confirmed that. She handed us a styrofoam plate and, far off in the distance, I could faintly heard an angel die.

We'd gotten through most of our meal - part of which was, for me, half a plate of some noodle substance that tasted like chicken boullion - before we heard, and I saw, the unfortunateness that was occurring in the corner.

I'll pause for a moment to be clear with you folks. If you are eating, or have just eaten, or might be pregnant, or are of delicate constitution in general, the rest of this might not be your cup o' chamomile.

I'd noticed that a group of people - people whom I'd assumed to be a family of some kind - gnawing their way through a meal in the back corner. Upon closer inspection, my first impression - that of them being related - seems to be suspect, as they were a very strange mash of people. Middle aged men. Old women. Early teens. Not a woman in her childbearing-years anywhere near. I thought, huh, and continued to savage a chicken breast.

Until one of the preteens began to blow snot-bubbles.

And then snot-rockets.

On his plate.

His plate with food on it.

And...and...

OH GOD MAKE IT STOP DEAR GOD MAKE ME BLIND

Then we realized that they were likely members of an unrelated group of people who may or may not have had needs. By the time we figured all of this out, though, the rest of the meal was ruined. Ruined. FOREVER.

As we ran to the car so that I could keep my gorge down, we realized that this wasn't the first time we'd been run out of a KFC by other patron's behaviors. Granted, this sweatpants-wearing teen had needs, and none of that was his fault. But what is it about a KFC buffet that opens a portal directly to dining-experience Hell? I have never been to one that did not have at least three of these people/events/smells:

1) One person with eye-burning cuminy body odor

2) Someone who will disobey line etiquette so much so that you wish to permanently embed unwashed salad tongs into folds of their ghastly white blubber

3) A vague but persistent smell of human urine

4) Some middle-aged, puff-paint-sweatshirt-wearing woman in clip-on earrings demanding fresher biscuits

5) A child vomiting, unseen by its parents, who are only alerted to the blessed gastric event when the wave of stench crashes over them

6) Several elderly men who talk loudly about how they shouldn't eat fried chicken because it's really a (insert innumerable racial epithets here) food

7) A really mangy-looking toy poodle with fleas in such a quantity as to be visible to the naked eye

8) A WASPy elderly couple sucking the marrow out of chicken leg bones

9) An uncomfortable-looking Asian

10) Someone who has clearly defecated on themselves

By now, you're thinking one of two things: one, "What do you expect? I mean, it's a goddamn KFC", or two, "Why would you still go there?"

I'm not an idiot; I don't go to a KFC and expect to be confronted by the comforting smells of bleach and cleanly, hygienic patrons. They. Sell. Deep. Fried. Animal. Carcasses. There. And not just ANY carcasses: carcasses of birds who likely lived very short, unhappy lives.

I suppose, then, that I am being punished. I go because I am hungry. I leave never wanting to eat again. I go because I think that this time JUST THIS ONCE DAMN IT ALL that I will be able to get through it without puking in my mouth. I leave because this is never to be because the great wheel of karma is providing me with an immediate return of punishment for my patronage. I go because I believe in the good in people. I leave because people blow snot rockets onto their awaiting plates.

The world, it has been said, is a vampire. Instead, I envision that the world is that old woman, sitting along with a knitting magazine, gnawing marrow out of a chicken thigh.

Just a thought.

Until next week, I remain,

Domonic