英语小故事第126期：Smells like Chicken

Kentucky Fried Chicken announced that it is going to advertise its new $3 lunches through customers’ nostrils. The company plans to send a fried chicken scent throughout office buildings at lunchtime. The aroma will be dispensed from the mail-cart that distributes interoffice mail throughout a building. KFC’s president thinks it’s an idea whose time has come.

“That’s a terrible idea,” exclaimed Rose, a secretary for the Department of Defense in Alexandria, Virginia. “First of all, I’m a vegetarian; the scent of cooked meat appalls me. Secondly, I belong to PETA—People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. And we all know how terribly chickens are treated before they are butchered. The whole idea is disgusting. And what makes it even worse is that they plan to foul the air every workday with fried chicken odor. Once a month would be bad enough, but once a day?”

A KFC spokesman said that KFC’s chickens are caged and butchered humanely, and that the scent would be subtle, “like a woman’s perfume in a very big elevator.” He said the scent would be just strong enough to notice. He also noted that KFC has a vegetarian menu that includes tofu shaped like chicken breasts and wings.

“Do they make the tofu crunchy and greasy, too?” asked Rose. “I’m going to demand equal time—if office workers have to smell fried chicken every day, then they should also have to listen to the sound of chickens’ heads getting chopped off every day.”