Of KFC and Chaos Theory by Paul K., 803

~~~~~A somewhat satirical tragedy~~~~~~

Food related illnesses affect an astounding 76 million people every year in the US alone. One recent October day I became part of that  statistic – a victim of the system. The tale I will weave for you is one of pandemonium and pain — one of chaos. This is, therefore, the perfect time to do something I’ve been really itching to do for a while: relate stuff to chaos theory. 

Chaos theory is the branch of mathematics that focuses on the potentially enormous effects which may be provoked by small events of the past. The textbook example of this is a tornado being caused by a distant butterfly flapping its wings. After what I experienced a few Saturdays ago, I believe it is time to rewrite the textbooks and replace the butterfly analogy with the KFC effect. 

Me and a few of my friends had gone paint balling earlier that day and we were hungry. It would be important for the reader to know that I was about 4818 days old at that point, yet I had never eaten KFC to that date. So, as a group, me and my aforementioned friends came to the agreement to get some Kentucky Fried Chicken, Kentucky Baked Potatoes, and Kentucky Cooked Mac And Cheese. I subsequently consumed my fair share of each of these. Now, at that point in the day, I had expected the worst issues I might experience to be caused by paint that had trickled into my mouth after a paintball exploded on my forehead. But, boy was I wrong.

Fast forward to dinner time. Or rather, what would have been the time dedicated to eating dinner. The discomfort began around 17 o clock military time. I was too busy occupying myself with the arduous task of annotating to pay any attention to the pain. But like a tiny hamster eating a tiny burrito, it just kept pleading for my attention and the growing twinge would stop at nothing until it had consumed me and my precious time. Before long, I just simply couldn’t ignore the unabating urge to use the bathroom. I stood up but immediately felt something that created a thought of an unspeakably horrendous nature in my mind: I wouldn’t make it to the bathroom. I had too much to live for, I told myself. I did make it in the end, but just barely. But I am confident that if toilets had ventromedial prefrontal cortexes, my toilet would have PTSD.

I wish I could tell you the onslaught was over as quickly as it began, but so was not the case. I had seen the malicious face of evil, and I retired to my bed to deal with the rest of the hurt my stomach had to offer.  

Sometimes I like to stop and reflect on just how far humans have come as a species. It frightens me how even in the culinary field, suffering runs rampant. And so an unassuming batch of assorted deep fried goods managed to incapacitate a man with stomach walls of steel. There exists a chaotic uncertainty, even in this profoundly technological age, that can still render a man to be but a whimpering captive of culinary cowardice. 

All in all, the chicken was slightly over-seasoned. A four out of five five piece meal.