Nobody likes a bargain more than me. Two weeks ago, I saw a TV commercial for Kentucky Fried Chicken’s new “Kentucky Grilled Chicken. ” I was pumped. Not because grilled chicken is healthy (remember, this is the same Kentucky Fried Chicken that started referring to themselves as “KFC” for a few years so you’d forget the fried part, and then later touted themselves as “healthy” during the Atkins revolution, because they’re fatty-ass chicken is low in carbs).
I wasn’t excited over health or taste. I was pumped because the TV commercial claimed Kentucky Fried Chicken would offer a free piece of Kentucky Grilled Chicken on Monday, April 27th.
I don’t like spending money on anything, so food and I are in a constant battle. I can live without a big-screen HD TV. I can live without buying new clothes. I cannot, sadly, live without eating, so finding good food cheap lives as a sort of constant Stewart vs. Reed struggle in my mind.
I don’t give an inch. In college, I garnered a rep for gourmet concoctions such as chicken nuggets over ramen noodles, tuna over spaghetti, and tuna over chili. (Hey! Tuna has barely any taste, and chili, with enough hot sauce, has a ton. So add some tuna to your chili and you’ve just made your meal more filling but no less healthy without effecting/affecting the taste for merely 60 cents. What a deal!)
So “KFC” was offering up a free piece on Monday the 27th, and I saw the commercial about it while I was in Salt Lake City. I took this as a sign from above because, believe it or not, Colonel Sanders’ first KFC restaurant actually opened in Salt Lake City, not Kentucky (SLCFC?).
I was ready for the free piece challenge. Of course, I wasn’t going to waste an entire trip (four miles) for lunch just for one measly piece of chicken. So I went to the KFC website and printed out some coupons, one offering a big three-piece meal with two sides and a drink for a phenomenal $4.99—that’s enough food to get me through lunch and dinner. Two meals for $2.49 and a half cents, with a free piece of grilled chicken thrown in? Deal!
One problem. I don’t know about your town, but the workers at our local KFC are about as smart as a chicken with its head cut off. Trouble began as soon as I set this mysterious “internet coupon” on the counter. “Would you like a drink with that?” said the girl, so I pointed out that this coupon-powered $4.99 deal included a drink already. “Oh, oh yeah, that’s right,” she followed.
Seconds later my whole darned meal was ready, thrown onto the counter by an employee counting the minutes between World of Warcraft shifts.
I grabbed my bag and headed out the door—and then realized they had still forgotten my drink. I headed back inside to get that and noticed how abnormally heft of this food bag. Something was wrong. I had looked in box#1 and saw three pieces of fried chicken. Fried!? Where was my grilled stuff? It couldn’t be in box #2, because that contained my extra free piece of grilled chicken. To check, I opened the freebie box. And what did I find? THREE MORE PIECES OF CHICKEN. GRILLED!!!
Folks, I had gotten six pieces for the price of three (and at the coupon price, to boot). KFC’s screw up had given me more food for my money. I love that place!
I’ve been bragging about this for weeks. So last week, when KFC upped the ante to offer a full-on free meal for free, a bunch of friends emailed to let me know my ship had come in.
The free meal deal is so popular now that KFC has had to chill out and offer a raincheck. Check it out here (and note the authentic Kentucky accent of the KFC president).
http://www.kfc.com/coupons/raincheck.asp
Meanwhile, I already got my free meal courtesy of a employee slip up two weeks ago. And when this rain check comes in, I’ll get getting another….
email me: jasonw@racerxonline.com
