How to Use Popcorn Chicken to Make Friends
By Jake Pitre
I was never a popular kid. In elementary and high school, I always had a certain group that I hung around with, but I invariably felt like the little, quiet kid following them around, someone to be tolerated. In many ways, I still feel that way, though less often.
In my last couple of years of elementary, I brought popcorn chicken from KFC for lunch once a week. My opinion on the restaurant and its “food” has evolved since that time, but back then, lunch on Tuesdays was the one time in the week I could look forward to. I’m not exactly sure why, but everyone wanted some of my popcorn chicken.
For that one lunch break, I was the most popular kid in the room. It started out as just a few of my friends, but soon enough I was giving away the majority of my chicken. I realized that people were nicer to me on Tuesdays, and that guys who would normally bully me were acting like we were friends. I knew, on some level, that it was only because of the chicken and that come Wednesday, things would be back to normal. But I gave it away anyway.
It was like a drug, because I received a temporary high from all the attention, but afterwards when someone inevitably bullied me, I snapped back to reality and started counting down the days until Tuesday all over again. This happened for months. People would do some kind of contest to see who would get the last piece, or take turns complimenting me to try and win my favour. But by Wednesday, I was once again a “faggot” or a “pussy”.
The years between seventh grade and the end of high school are rough for most, for all the reasons you’ve heard and some you haven’t. Many are lonely, and I was one of them. What KFC’s popcorn chicken has come to symbolize for me in the years since then is self-delusion. I was nowhere near self-aware enough at the time to articulate to myself why I kept giving away my chicken every week, even though the same sorry cycle repeated itself. Bullied, chicken, bullied, chicken, et cetera. I remember feeling as if I just had to hit a certain number of weeks before these people actually started to consider me a friend. That there was a magic number that would unlock the gate, “just one more week, just one more week”.
It’s funny now, of course, that popcorn goddamn chicken has come to mean what it means, but I think that happens a lot. The darkest times in our lives become associated with something easier to deal with.
With less regularity, this kind of self-delusion still happens to me. I catch myself doing it, but rarely stop it. You know the situation: someone needs something from you, so even though they normally wouldn’t spend half a minute on you, they are being awfully generous, both with their time and their manner. I think we often want to believe that after, things will stay like this, when the truth is that once they have what they want from you, whether it’s popcorn chicken or help with an assignment, they’re gone.
And why not? It’s human nature to have your own self-interest in mind, and to hell with everyone else. I do it, too. So do you. Don’t feel guilty. In light of the death of Robin Williams, though, I started to think about it a little differently. This is a massively successful comedian and actor, a worldwide star who has made millions laugh and cry, sometimes in the same film or routine. But he suffered from depression and anxiety, cripplingly so, which -if nothing else — proves how those diseases can truly affect anyone.
Many have used his death to explain what this loss can teach us, and how we need to do better. What his death teaches me is that there must be no more self-delusion. The self demands that you be honest with it. And honestly, people are never going to stop putting themselves before everyone else, and they are never going to stop using other people to get what they want. What we can do, something that practically every story about Williams has described him as doing, is just be generous to each other for the sake of it. Even if you know you’re being used. Even if you have nothing to gain. Just be a generous person, and hope that you will be remembered as fondly as Robin Williams. Give away that fucking popcorn chicken, but not for them or their validation, but for yourself. I think it’s all we can do.