"The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation."
We are born. We
live. We die. But who are we? And what is this life we speak of? No one knows.
We have our little dramas; we all too often pretend that things “matter”
or that we are “connected” to something greater. But this nonsense is clearly a means to
inflate our sense of importance, a means to shield ourselves from the darkness
of the eternal void of space and time.
This is where fried chicken, in its various guises, comes in.
Let me submit to you my fried chicken adventures from last
week. I wanted Popeye’s chicken tenders –
and why wouldn’t I? They’re crispy and
delicious. I ran over from work not
having much time. The line was
prohibitively long. I had no choice but
to pass and instead went to McDonald’s, where I partook in a Southern Style
Chicken Sandwich. The next day, having
not had my Popeye’s tenders, I returned to Popeye’s for tenders. This time I succeeded. I ate my tenders and enjoyed them immensely
(I will not lie, I enjoyed my biscuit, too).
But this was not enough for me.
That night I ventured to Hill Country Fried Chicken and had a piece of
fried chicken and a Texas Tender, Hill Country’s plump take on the classic
tender.
In much the same way people use their pretend sense of
meaning to fill the emptiness of existence, I use fried chicken. The only difference is that fried chicken is
real and meaning isn’t. Yet in the end even fried chicken amounts to nothing.