DAY FOUR - PAGE 2
We wandered around a little longer, but it was getting close to mid-day, and we were looking forward to the lunch we had planned. So we said good-bye to CCI for another year. It could just be my imagination, but I think everyone there was sorry to see us go.
We headed out of San Diego to nearby Oceanside. Our destination: the Oceanside KFC.
As many of you know, my friend Ken used to be part of our Comic-Con entourage. He is also a Kentucky Fried Chicken aficionado, and he introduced us to the Oceanside location. It became something of a tradition for us to stop there each year on the way back from the Con. Alas, traditions don't always endure... Ken eventually had to bow out of the annual Comic-Con excursion, and although we stopped by the Oceanside KFC a couple of times in the following years without him, it seemed like a betrayal to enjoy it in his absence. So we switched to having a big breakfast on the final Sunday morning of the Con, so we wouldn't be hungry when we drove through Oceanside. Loyalty is more easily exercised with a full belly.
This trip, though, we decided that enough time had passed to transform betrayal into nostalgia. We'd revisit the KFC, raise our drumsticks in a toast to our absent friend, and maybe rekindle a hitherto faded tradition.
You're probably wondering what was so special about this particular KFC outlet, compared to the flock of other KFC along our route home. It sure wasn't the ambience... although the town's called Oceanside, about all you can see from the local KFC is the local McDonalds and Jack-In-The-Box. There's no mealtime entertainment (at least, not until we get there). There's not even a 12th herb and/or spice.
The reason the Oceanside KFC was our shining bucket on the horizon was that it was one of the rare KFC restaurants that offered an all-you-can-eat buffet.
I don't know how the environmentally-conscious folks, who are all over global warming and other dangers to the public health, managed to miss the fact that KFC had established these insurgent cholesterol distribution centers. There had to be enough deep-frying taking place to cut into our oil reserves and set off alarms somewhere. The obesity rate in this country has steadily been climbing... didn't somebody notice that the stats were being affected by a handful of locations showing up as dimples on the topographical surveys?
For whatever reason, for years we had taken advantage of the Oceanside KFC, where for one low price, you could eat ALL THE KENTUCKY FRIED CHICKEN YOU COULD HOLD. (There were other offerings, of course... mashed potatoes, corn, coleslaw... but the turnover on that stuff wasn't rapid and I suspect it stayed there for days). There still isn't a name for the number of calories we would consume during those annual feasts.
So when Sam, Ben, and I pulled into the Oceanside KFC this year and discovered the buffet was no longer being offered, our jaws would have dropped in dismay if our tongues hadn't already been hanging out in anticipation.
Even though we hadn't been there in years, it still felt like the end of an era. We didn't bother going inside to ask them why the buffet was no longer in place. We were a little afraid we'd find out that our annual visits there were making the whole operation fiscally unfeasible. But really, the reason didn't matter. It was gone and nothing could take its place except for maybe the Fullerton Shakey's weekday Bunch-A-Lunch and the Lefty's Chicago pizza that we immediately instituted as new dining traditions.
We shuffled over to the nearby Jack-In-The-Box and drowned our sorrows in a few dozen of those deep-fried things they call tacos. And that marked, rather ignominiously, the end of the 2010 Comic-Con trip. But a bad ending can't spoil an entire trip... well, maybe it can... the Titanic comes to mind... Yeah, scratch that. Let's just say a bad ending didn't spoil this trip. We had a good time, and the subsequent time I spent devoting copious amounts of cyber-ink to this journal spared many innocent folks from having to deal with me personally. All that's left is to make a few random closing observations.
All material copyright 2009 Chuck Thornton