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Woman Spends Entire Week in KFC After Being Dumped
Other | Thursday 23rd October 2014 | Osh
The Colonel himself couldn't have come up with a better free ad for the emotional solace of fried chicken.
The money that must get pissed away every year on the same old ads, when all KFC needs to do is promote the shelter service it offers to the love-sick. That was the service it seemed to provide for a young Chinese woman, Tan Shen.
Comfort eating is of course a common first resort for those in emotional distress; according to the cliche, applying to the fairer sex in particular. But 26 year-old Tan Shen from China's Sichuan Province has raised the bar for the heartbroken everywhere by taking a week-long vacation at the Colonel's Finest; that place where chickens go after they die became the place to go when you've been dumped by your boyfriend.
She stopped by a KFC branch near her home, phoned in sick to work and didn't leave for a week. It sounds like a missing scene from the REM 'Everybody Hurts' video ('My boyfriend left me; chicken burger meal, please'). Or something from a quirky Bridget Jones type chick flick. It's unsurprising that it's captured the imagination of type on-line community.
"I hadn’t planned on staying there long, I just wanted some chicken wings," the now (briefly) famous Tan told reporters. "But once I got in there and started eating I decided I needed time to think."
After a week of her KFC holiday (complete with breathtaking views of the menu), Ms Shen ended her fried chicken love-in once local media reporters started showing interest and bothering her. She decided her destiny lay not with the chickens but in leaving the city and going back to her parents.
"And I was getting sick of the taste of chicken," Ms Shen added. Yeah, we're not surprised.
The joking aside (and, obviously, there's been lots of it), there's something charming, in our fast-paced, dog-eat-dog (or woman-eat-chicken) culture, about someone just pausing, staying put and taking the time to reflect and work through their feelings. Maybe we should all take a leaf out of Ms Shen's book (or pull a chicken leg out her bucket, so to speak) and have a time-out when we need one.
And the 26 year-old is in good company too. The late Maya Angelou once said, "The best comfort food will always be greens, cornbread, and fried chicken."
