Let's set the scene first. Last month, the local Chick-Fil-A had a buy-one-get-one type of promotion--along with a little voucher card, you keep the receipt from your order, bring it in again in August, and you get the same order again, free. I didn't realize the sandwiches were so fucking expensive, so I go the (relatively) conservative route and buy 6 to last me a couple days, along with some sides (no Icedream, sorry!).I go in the other day to claim my duplicate on-the-house order, and I'm reading off the original receipt and about to hand it over. Then a cowbell rings. But "Don't Fear the Reaper" isn't playing; technically it's not that kind of cowbell anyway, but rather, a bell--well, more like a siren, actually--that happens to be on a prop cow. Imagine a door chime hopped up on meth or some overzealous guy trying to play blast-beats on a triangle for a close approximation of the sound.
Unbeknownst to me, every 100th customer gets their food free. So I get to keep the voucher for another use later. I'm kind of in a neutral nonplussed mood about the whole thing; it's cool I'm reaping so many rewards from the initial order, but at the same time kicking myself for not ordering more and stockpiling.
Due to all this free food, I can now totally overlook Chick-Fil-A incessantly using styrofoam and underwriting "Adventures from the Book of Virtues."
Obligatory side points:
1. Chick-Fil-A without a doubt is my favorite kind of boneless chicken, and I guess ultimately would probably tie with Kenny Rogers Roasters' chicken as my favorite ever. For some reason, though, I don't think the stand-alone restaurants have the charm of the stores in malls (in fact, I didn't know stand-alone ones existed until I went to one in Florida as a teen). Of course, all the mall stores around here were two-story double-decker style, which was great because you could be stuffing your face with waffle fries and still be theoretically enjoying the same high altitude dining experience as the bourgeoise assholes nibbling tea sandwiches in the Lazarus cafe. Of course, the one I frequented the most just happened to be right across from the mall's arcade, which contributes a lot to my memories of it. How grand it was to wolf down my food in anticipation of laying my peanut oil saturated digits on a N.A.R.C. cabinet.
2. Strangely enough, this is not my first streak of luck involving boneless southern-style chicken this year; a few months ago I found coupons good for free McDonald's Southern Style Chicken Sandwich and Southern Style Chicken Biscuit. I should probably do a full review later, but what really freaked me out is that every time I used a coupon, I got a plain sandwich, but on every second bite the chicken aftertaste had a strong pickle flavor.
3. Believe it or not, the graphic at the top was the very first Photoshop job I ever did in the late '90s. I was about to type that all my luck was S. Truett Cathy bestowing some posthumous blessings on me for my work, but by gum, as of this writing, he's still alive.
