I am feeling hungry and the ticket guy at the movie theater won’t let me in ‘cuz he says it’s too early for the 4:10 showing of Spiderman which is the only new movie this week and I really don’t feel like watching last weeks offerings of Madagascar 17 and Ice Age 42 and the Mel Gibson rent-payer Get the Gringo which I downloaded illegally anyway from piratebay.org and watched on my laptop and was amazed at how bad it was so why pay to see it in the theater and so I walk by all the food vendors in the “food court” at the Gran Plaza mall, finally settling on KFC and some fried chicken.

If you want to screw up their little system ask for two pieces of chicken. Just the chicken. The initial smile from Yael, a chubby, effeminate and very ebullient little employee faded as he looked back at the menu board and then told me it would be more economical for me to order the combo, with two pieces of chicken, a styro container of their starchy instant mashed potato with the euphemistically named gravy, another styro container of their sugar and mayo laden cole slaw and a nourishing white flour biscuit as well as a soda to complete the fat intake. No, I just want the chicken, I told Yael. He hesitated, and then very professionally the smile returned to his round face and he charged me the 32 pesos.

My order was then passed on to another employee and I was sent along the counter to wait. I watched as the employee doing the actual placing of food in bags, double check with Yael to make sure that she had read correctly – only two pieces of chicken. Nothing else. Yes, Yael nodded, smiling at me. Meanwhile, an employee in the back of the restaurant, sucking back a refresco, was hugged and then kissed on the shoulder by another employee. The fact that they were both males did not startle me as much as they fact that they were in KFC and in full view of the public. I am convinced that in racially tolerant and sexually liberal Kentucky the idea of two Mexicans kissing in the local KFC would go over well.

Ruzzel – yes, that’s Ruzzel with two Z’s, another creative Yucatecan version of an English name – was in charge of handing the bag of food to the customer and carefully looked at the ticket, then at me.

“No va a querer refresco?” he asked, doubtfully.

“No”, I replied, “solo el pollo“.

After getting an affirmative nod from cheerful-again cashier Yael, he handed me my bag with two pieces of chicken and off I went to find a spot in the crowded mall to eat it. The chicken was hot and the original recipe still tasted pretty darn good.