What would you do for a craving?

How far would you go to eat a specific food? In my case, I'd go to another country. Allow me to elaborate...

My work takes me to many different countries and under many different situations and accommodations. One of my trips took me to the Caribbean to one of Lesser Antilles Islands. Wonderful, you say? Well, I thought so as well, until I realized that I would have to island-jump to one of the tiniest islands aboard a minuscule 6-seater airplane.

Never mind that the captain looked liked he had been drinking before getting into the plane...never mind that I could smell fuel from my oh-so-comfortable seat...never mind that we were flying so low that I could swear I could see fishes in the sea. The island where I was supposed to get off was, of course, the very last stop on this plane ride from hell. But hey, I was in a relatively 'virgin' island and think of all the exotic nature I would find (this, I kept telling myself while holding on for dear life after the 4th landing, during the last hour).

Well, I finally got there and behold! What beautiful scenery...and nothing much else. I mean...NOTHING. The island is 3.5 square miles in total, and there is no Supermarket, just a small place called Rebecca's Place. There, I found a few extremely overpriced essentials like chocolate bars and soda. And that's it.

There really was no restaurant to speak of, I was being fed by the resort that was being built (where I was doing my consulting job), and the food did not agree with my stomach. My poor belly was in revolt and I really needed to eat something that even though it would not fix my tummy, it would at least soothe my soul. And I had to be there for a whole month!

I casually mentioned this to another consultant and he clued me in on a startling fact....he knew were to find a Kentucky Fried Chicken.

KENTUCKY FRIED CHICKEN, you say? KFC? REALLY? I usually don't go to KFC in the USA where I live, but when my ears heard KFC, I could have sworn my tummy promised to behave and my body started to get prepared for the closest thing to Nirvana, but something in my head knew there had to be a catch. And, there was. I would have to Island hop on the dreaded 6-seater plane to get there.

What a dilemma....Soothe My Soul versus Die from Heart Attack. What did I choose, you ask? Why, the plane from hell, of course!

That Saturday morning, at 7:00am I was at the airport, very expensive ticket in hand and ready to begin the KFC adventure. I told no one that I was going, I simply talked to hotel person in charge of plane tickets and got myself a spot on the dreaded chunk of metal.

I arrived at my destination after much tossing about in the aircraft (it was raining like there was no tomorrow), and I literally ran towards a taxi and asked him to take me to KFC.

"Really? It's only 9:30am!", the driver said.
"Good!", I blurted. " I'll be the first one there when they open!"

To my surprise, there was a line of tourists lined up when I arrived - all hungry-looking and ready to snap at anyone that might have the inclination to cut into the line.

So, when they finally opened, I ordered almost everything on those picture thingies on the wall. I sat down and ate, and ate and ate until I felt embarrassed at people watching me. That's alright, they didn't know what I had been through.

I finally got up, went window shopping and guess what I found in a gift shop...a backpack in the form of a cylinder....are you thinking what I'm thinking??? Perfect for carrying a couple of KFC buckets back to my half-built resort room!

And that I did...I bought two buckets chock-full of all kinds of chicken and happily went back to my island-hopping plane and back to my destination. What I didn't count on was that to get to my room, I'd have to pass a bunch of other rooms...and it seems that KFC aroma travels...so, by the time I got back to my room, there were at least 12 colleagues looking like Pavlov's dogs after me.

It turned out to be a rather fun chicken eating and warm coca-cola drinking makeshift party.

I was happy...I had been to Nirvana and back and was still alive to talk about it!

Z.