Chick-fil-A Retreat

Defeated, you abandon the bagel quest and make the long drive across town. You pull into Chick-fil-A, where the drive-thru coils like a vengeful serpent around the building.

The voice from the speaker is relentlessly cheerful, inhumanly so: “My pleasure! My pleasure! My pleasure!”

It echoes in your skull as you inch forward.

At last, the food arrives. The waffle fries are fine. The sandwich is… fine. Everything is engineered to be fine. But as you eat, you realize there is no joy here.

The dining room feels sterile, like a dentist’s office that discovered chicken. The art on the wall depicts smiling cows begging for your complicity.

You think of Bodo’s — of fresh bagels steaming in brown paper bags, of the holy cooler of cream cheese, of the line that moves with quiet civic discipline — and your chest tightens with regret.

You are fed, but unfulfilled. Full, but spiritually hollow. Your soul is empty, and worse, you know it will be another 24 hours before you dare to seek Bodo’s again.

Try Again?