I ate the Supergirl KFC meal so you don’t have to, but you can if you want.

It had been a long day. I was tired. I was hungry. I was trapped at work without a vehicle available to me.

I’m not making excuses. I’m not trying to make you feel sorry for me. I’m just trying to make you understand what would make man order the KFC x Supergirl Ultimate Tenders Meal.

I wouldn’t call it desperation. I could have gotten one of the salads my place of work sells in a little snack vendor. I’ve had them, they’re not bad, just a little expensive for what you get. I could have followed it up with a visit to the gym. Little time on the chest press, little bit of cardio. I’d have felt like a new man. Not how it went, friend, because the only thing I hate more than boredom is myself.

The next thing I know I’m scrolling DoorDash. DoorDash was a habit that I picked up in the heady days of the pandemic, and really only broke last year. It went from a regular indulgence to a ‘break-glass’ solution. Today was one of those days.

I didn’t scroll long before I saw this image. I think it was all the blue and gold. A cool looking beverage and those crispy looking tenders on a muggy day in the Appalachian foothills. I’d even get a little toy. “Twenty-two minutes to order,” the app told me in urgent looking letters, a digital devil in the palm of my hand. I cast my lot. Maybe they’d cancel the order and save me from myself. This KFC was prone to do that, after all.

Not today. A crisp 28 minutes later a young man named Matthew arrived with my chicken under arm. He called me ‘Boss’. He flashed a peace sign as he left. I increased his tip a couple of bucks.

Fourteen dollars and seven cents I paid, before the delivery fees and Matthew’s tip. For my silver, I was given three chicken strips, a biscuit, mashed potatoes with gravy and a mysterious cerulean beverage they call Supergirl’s Kryptonian Kooler.

I don’t know if it comes across in the photograph, but at first I thought they had erroneously given me a comically large straw. “Cool,” I thought, “I can drink this super fast.” Then I nearly sucked down a frightening amount of boba pearls. Boba Pearls! I had no idea KFC had so thoroughly aligned itself with the bourgeois.

The rest of the meal is exactly the same one I’ve had a hundred times drunk and a thousand times sober. White meat chicken, mixed with the famous KFC breading and gristle and grease. I dipped my biscuit in the gravy and nearly went to sleep from a comfort overload. The drink was honestly the highlight: Starry mixed with blue raspberry syrup, with strawberry boba. It was genuinely refreshing after a humid, sticky day outside.

I must mention The Toy. A bag clip, by trade. There are five characters to be pulled at random, another fine example of the low-stakes gambling permeating collectibles these days, but it’s okay this time because I’m doing it and having fun. You can receive one of two Supergirls, Jason Momoa, a dog or Ruthye.

I received Ruthye, which I must tell you would have been my last pick. I was familiar with the rest of the characters on offer, but I was only just now being introduced to Ruthye, and I can’t say this figure was putting her best foot forward.

When I looked at the packaging, I noticed Ruthye was on the back row of the featured characters with Krypto, the dog. I know Krypto is a singular beast, and perhaps this is only because I have recently taken custody of her, I know Ruthye deserves more respect.

So what’s the verdict? I don’t know if I have one. “Then what was the point?” I hear you asking, your blood pumping furiously into your ears.

The point is I had a fun little experience. In this way I continue to be alive. One day I will have been alive, past tense. In choosing to do something out of the norm, and documenting it, I have proven to myself that I exist and I get to share it with you, reader. I leave you not with a verdict on chicken, but with one of my favorite quotes from one of my favorite all time people, Kurt Vonnegut Jr, who, as always, found a way to be clear-eyed about the end of days, and still find the optimism and beauty in the world.

(talking about when he tells his wife he’s going out to buy an envelope) Oh, she says well, you’re not a poor man. You know, why don’t you go online and buy a hundred envelopes and put them in the closet? And so I pretend not to hear her. And go out to get an envelope because I’m going to have a hell of a good time in the process of buying one envelope. I meet a lot of people. And, see some great looking babes. And a fire engine goes by. And I give them the thumbs up. And, and ask a woman what kind of dog that is. And, and I don’t know. The moral of the story is, is we’re here on Earth to fart around. And, of course, the computers will do us out of that. And, what the computer people don’t realize, or they don’t care, is we’re dancing animals.