POPEYES VS COLONEL HARLAND SANDERS

backbone of the American diet

    I was at a Major Medical Center in San Francisco the other day fixing a printer.  As I was working on the printer in this very small room I began talking to this very nice African American woman sitting in the corner typing patient information into a computer.  She was a woman of large caliber if you know what I mean.  She had just gotten back from lunch a few minutes before I arrived.  She started telling me about a retired employee who I will just call Martha.  She was telling another employee who walked into the room that Martha had stopped by. After the whole "how is Martha doing?" chit chat the lady typing into the computer said that Martha is crazy.  Now when I hear someone is crazy, that sparks my attention.  "It takes one to know one." has always been a favorite quote for me.  I am crazy, and I wanted to know what makes Martha crazy.  Turns out that Martha had retired ten years ago and comes back to the city from Daily City every Tuesday  for the cafeteria fried chicken.  She doesn't even come into the building.  She calls up this lady in the corner of the room and asks her to buy the chicken and then bring to her in her car, in which Martha is parked outside.

    At first I was going to do some follow up questions about crazy ol Martha.  But decided to back off that line of questioning for two reasons.  1.Who's crazier, Martha, a women who drives to the city for cafeteria fried chicken, or the woman who buys it for her and then hand delivers it.  I figure it most be the delivery person of course.  2. I have an African American women in front of me who just brought up the topic of FRIED CHICKEN.  One of the biggest stereotypes on both sides of the race line there could be in this country.  I'm white she's black, and we have a open line of communication.  So I chanced it!!

    "Speaking of fried chicken, my co-workers and I have an on going debate.  Which chicken is better?  Popeyes, Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC), Church's, (and for good measure, and to make the race card even) Boston Market?"  As I expected she threw out Boston Market.  Then with some more thinking she threw out Church's which I didn't expect.  Narrowing it down to only two, KFC and Popeyes and so the discussion continued.  I was pulling for Mr. Sanders.  We went straight for the re-heat factor.

    As a white guy who has mostly white friends, I told her that my friends and I like the cold day old KFC chicken.  Nothing taste better.  Her reply was that me and my White Bread friends are just crazy.  Nothing taste worse in her opinion then cold KFC chicken.  However she did say that if you wrap the chicken up with a damp paper towel and re-heat the chicken it would taste exactly like it did when you bought it.  All the years of working at Amtrak had taught her this.  But as I dug down and held my ground, she came foreword with the truth.  Turns out her cousin worked at KFC for a year or two, and for the those years there was much KFC hanging around the house.  So much, it started to turn her off.  So much, I started to feel ill from her describing her old American diet.  Cold chicken always in the fridge, chicken bones in the garbage.  Chicken bones around the the garbage, carcasses under the couch cushion. (I figure with all that chicken, some lazy ass would have stuffed some leftover piece under the couch, when I asked about chicken parts being hidden in the furniture, she laughed and said it only happened once.  Something about her 5 year nephew doing it and a funky smell in the apartment until the piece was  found)  At this point not wanting to be judged as any kind of racist I threw in a story about producer of  "www.thagierk.com" Adam getting sick at a KFC restaurant and yacking up chicken and orange soda all over the dinning room area.  And another time in which both Adam and I bought a bucket a chicken and threw pieces off a highway over pass at passing cars below, and the time we left a KFC dinner in front of a liquor store (the clerk inside the store was very strict about no outside food in his store) and while we went inside to buy some beverage some person from the Weight Watchers  establishment next door came out and stole our chicken dinner.  I had this lady in stitches.  Once I had her laughing pretty good, I went for the kill.  "What makes Popeyes so great anyway.?"

    She stopped laughing instantly and got all serious.  Popeyes I guess is no laughing matter.  You would have thought I brought up God or Jesus.  "Popeyes has a lot better taste, and they have Cajun style, which is the best.  I go to Popeyes at least once a month off of Divisdaro Ave.  The establishment there is the best.  The chicken is hot but not too greasy.  The biscuits taste better than any biscuit you can get from KFC.  And then I thought she said something about cornbread but I couldn't be sure.  She then then looked around the room, leaned in and motioned with her index finger for me to move in closer, which I did.  She had my undivided attention.  I was as serious in my look as she was in her statements.  When I was close enough she said to me in a very quiet whisper "the chicken is so good, you and your friend wouldn't be caught dead throwing it off a freeway overpass.  It would be considered at hate crime if you were caught"  Then she started laughing really fucking loud.  She got me!!!!!  Son of a bitch!!  She got ThaGierk.

    In conclusion, food is food, there is no BEST fried chicken place.  Like there is no best Chinese place.  It's all relative to the person talking.  However you can talk to people of another race or culture about stereotypes that plague our society.  Talk to them, DON'T FUCKING INSULT THEM, insult yourself and your friends but don't insult them.  In case you didn't figure it out, the above story was nothing but lies and stereotypes.  That is how she got me.  We played on each other the moment I brought up fried chicken.  Except for wrapping up cold chicken with a wet paper towel and then micro waving it, everything else was lie.  Trying to out do each other by spinning stories BASED on some truth.  Come on, unless you are a raciest to begin with, do you really think she had chicken pieces just lying around her apartment?  Making it sound like she lived in filth.  The only truth, I'm sure of is that she had a family member work at KFC and there was a lot of chicken around.  Do you really think Adam puked up chicken and ORANGE soda, or believed that two white guys would throw chicken off a over pass or believe that a person from Weight Watchers would take an abandoned chicken dinner.

talking to someone black about fried chicken, orange soda, Kool cigarettes,  does not make you a racist.