Bloglet #1: Chickening Out

It has also occurred to me, to resume my previous thought, that not every post has to be War and Peace... in the old days when I was very concerned about my stats, I tried to make every post 'legitimate'. I think I may experiment a bit with smaller posts, although the real issue for me is the time it takes me, not the number of words I put out. So here goes...

This evening, my daughter & I had a little "date"-- her brother was at their grandmother's, and mom was out for the evening, so we decided to have a little adventure. We took advantage of one of the great inventions of recent years: the fast-food location with two franchises. I suppose it's mostly that the food business has consolidated lately, but I sure wish they'd had this when I was a kid. In our area we have an A&W/KFC, a Taco Bell/Long John Silver's, and a KFC/Taco Bell, so plenty of fat & calories available in many varieties.

We chose the latter tonight; Taco Bell has a 99-cent taco that qualifies as a feast for her at a price it's not hard for me to love. And I am all about the fried chicken... ok, I know it's not really fried, it's Pressure-Cooked. With zero-trans-fat oil. So really, it's almost health food. You probably know that they don't use "fried" in their name any more -- it's just plain KFC -- but I really enjoy the way they get the subliminal benefit from the Implied Fried while at the same time sort of disavowing it.

When you go out for fast food, it's probably better not to think about the nutritional angle, and frankly I probably wouldn't have except in visiting the KFC website to see whether they really play up the pressure-cooking angle (I couldn't find a mention), I discovered a nifty nutrition calculator.

Here's the scoop on my relatively modest meal (2 pc thigh & drumstick, extra crispy; mac & cheese, a biscuit and a Pepsi):

• 1110 calories
• 87% of the recommended daily value for fat
• 51% for cholesterol
• 113% for sodium
• 5% for dietary fiber (that's almost all the biscuit, of which I only ate about half)

I should probably pause here to request that if I die before I finish this post, please tell my family I loved them...

After eating and before my arteries hardened all the way, I took my daughter to the rest room. Rather than turning her loose in what I'm sure was an absolutely pristine ladies' room, I took her into the men's room. As I opened the door, I was confronted face-to-face with the "men's products" vending machine. I got her settled into what she needed to do and sort of sidled over to the machine to begin to prepare the spiel for the inevitable... she always notices everything and wants to know why and how and who and where.

Here's what KFC thinks every man needs: (1) a small pack of Tylenol (2) a pack of temporary tattoos (although the label was actually spelled 'tatoos') and (3) a pack of glow sticks. By the way, the glow sticks had a disclaimer: should not be taken internally. In case you were feeling really literal about trying to get that 'inner glow'.

And of course, since I was prepared with an answer to "Daddy, what's that?" (although I would have been absolutely stumped by the inevitable follow-up, "Why do they have glow sticks in the bathroom?"), she didn't even notice.

I'm pretty sure the conversations are going to get worse anyway...