Ghetto Chicken

Food consumes a lot of my thoughts. It used to be "how can I avoid chocolate today?" and things along those lines, but now it is all about "How can I get enough calories today when absolutely nothing in the world sounds good?" I have lost weight again with this pregnancy. So far, I have only gained one pound of it back. The only thing that sounds consistently good is Olive Garden's Soup, Salad, and Breadsticks. The last time we went I ate the entire bowl of lettuce myself...it was that good.
Yesterday I got a hankering for KFC. We happened to be out for a drive when we spied one along the road and I asked Craig to stop. I won't identify our exact location, but I will say that I would never go there alone or at night. We pulled into the drive through lane and waited for our order to be taken. There was never a response and there was a car behind us. "Maybe the speaker is broken," Craig mumbled under his breath after a few minutes of waiting. We pulled on ahead to the window where we could see only one lady working. At this point we opted to park the car and go inside.
On our way in we happened to notice a SUV that was parked next to us. There were 3 kids staring at us from the cabin and a lady standing in the back with the hatch open. She was sorting through oodles and oodles of canvas bags that filled the rear hatch. Two KFC employees were next to her and watching intently. At first I thought that maybe she had ordered a whole boatload of Chicken and the KFC people were helping her to her car, but quickly realized that she was peddling perfumes and lotions. It was shady to say the least, but that would not stand between me and my extra crispy chicken drumstick kid's meal.
The restaurant was among the strangest I have ever seen. This was no open concept double-decker KFC like the ones in Hayes, Kansas. This was more like a bank. There was a 3/4" pane of glass between the cashier, chicken, and us. We placed our order through the microphone and slid our payment through the slot on the counter as the people before us received their food through the double doored contraption at the end of the glass panel. I took a few minutes to look around. The place was clean and the floor freshly mopped, but there wasn't a thing in there that wasn't bolted down. No ketchup packets, no napkins, no nothing. It was like Fort Knox. That was the most protected fried chicken I have ever seen. No one, and I mean NO ONE was getting near it without official KFC credentials.
By the time we got our food we were more than ready to be gone from there. The service was friendly enough, but the atmosphere looked like it could have doubled as a booking station in the evenings. (Not that I know from personal experience, for the record.) On our way back to the car we were met by one of the employees with her arms full of perfumes in fancy bottles.
The 15+ mile drive back home was filled with conversation of all we had just seen. The kids meal was good and tasted very fresh, but I doubt we'll be eating at fort Knox Fried Chicken again any time soon. It is amazing what a different life some people live either by choice or necessity. We are so blessed.