I remember, years ago, seeing a local KFC mobbed with people at Christmas. You could literally not get chicken without a three-hour wait, and most people had reservations. For some reason, I thought that would be December 25th, but I was off by a day–it was December 24th, and I missed the scene with the long lines and all. Still, even on December 25th, you could see that the KFC people were ready for a lot of special orders:

They had at least a few dozen advance-reservation orders ready and waiting, and obviously had a system for processing it all. Still, the regular lines were manageable, and Sachi and I were able to get a quick order of chicken to eat at the restaurant.

Just in case this makes no sense to you, in Japan, the only thing as popular as cake on Christmas is chicken. Couldn’t say why, maybe it’s the closest Japan could come to a turkey dinner, else (and more likely) it’s what the PR people told everyone was The Thing to Do and everyone simply obeyed. Since then (at least since the 80’s), KFC has been swamped at Christmas. Can’t blame them, they do a fair job–save for the fact that they don’t have popcorn chicken (which likely saves me from obesity), their chicken tends to be superior to the American counterparts, which, I suspect, serve only mutant chickens raised to midget proportions. Japanese KFC is decent.

Since I usually go back to the U.S. at Christmas, I don’t know when I’ll have another chance to catch the mob scene at KFC. Suffice it to say that Japan is kind of nuts on this kind of thing, which, of course, is par for the course on the world scene. I mean, you can be nuts about lots worse stuff than this, right?