6 FEB 06: CHICKEN WITH A KICK

Would you call the police because your restaurant order was wrong? I know a man who did that Sunday. This is why it was a terrible mistake to take the "Restaurant Report Card" off the TV news....

BLOG EXCLUSIVE: A Columbus man told me Sunday night he was barred from the KFC on Macon Road in midtown, after he called police to assist him in handling an incorrect food order. If only Clark Howard would move down from Atlanta, and be available seven days a week for cases like this.

This man may have smelled trouble coming right away. He says when he placed his order at KFC, the woman who helped him was pulled away by someone else behind the counter. These workers need to finish what they start -- unless perhaps it means they have to work a 12-hour day.

While the man waited on his order, he says he struck up a conversation with the KFC staff -- and the workers didn't know whom Coretta Scott King and Martin Luther King Jr. were. Do these employees listen to country music radio stations all day or something?!

The man received food from KFC, then drove down Macon Road to the Columbus Public Library to eat Sunday dinner in his car in the parking lot. That's when he discovered the error -- and he says he "called law enforcement" before going back. Police apparently not only serve you; they ensure servers get it right as well.

The man explains he called police on his cell phone before returning to KFC because he was concerned things might get out of hand. After hearing Sunday night about a Florida man who set fire to his new Ford Explorer in protest, maybe that wasn't so far-fetched....

So the customer went back to KFC to get his order corrected. While police officers raced to the scene, the man claims he told the restaurant staff they shouldn't disrespect him in light of the legacy of late civil rights pioneers. So step two in getting proper customer service is: bring up Rosa Parks.

Police eventually reached KFC on Macon Road, and an officer went inside for the customer to make things right. That officer came out with the right order, and told the man he couldn't return to the restaurant anymore. The thought of police correcting the staff day after day must be too much job pressure.

This African-American man says he was "kicked out of KFC by a black woman" -- and he calls the whole thing "humiliating." Yet I wonder how the restaurant staff felt, when they saw "police backup" coming for a customer with the wrong chicken....

The man openly admits he's been kicked out of other places in Columbus over the years, perhaps because of things he's said. He reminded me of a bank which told him to leave because he refused to be served by a Puerto Rican employee. Apparently "equal opportunity employers" shouldn't expect customers to act that way.

It's easy to say this customer simply needs to change his TV viewing habits. You may recall the famous words of Doug Llewellyn: "Don't take the law into your own hands - take 'em to court."

But this man says he's a Christian, and he refuses to file lawsuits on Biblical grounds. Yet the section of the Bible he cites warns against "brother going to law with brother." If so many people are upset by what he says and does, I'm wondering if they're even distant cousins.

E-MAIL UPDATE: Our recent looks at Auburn University [5 Feb] and football's "national signing day" [2 Feb] brought this message Sunday:

In response to the Auburn HS kid.....THANK GOD SOMEONE IN THIS AREA HAS A HEAD ON THEIR SHOULDERS! Praise Yaweh, Jesus, Allah, all of them!

The only thing an Auburn degree will get you is a job at WRBL....no, that's NOT something to be proud of Susanna Avery, but keep up the good work. YOU'RE HOT!!!

GO JACKETS!

AR

Uh-oh - I can see the Baptists moving their mice to write replies now. Not to mention football fans from Auburn, Georgia, Alabama....

AR is referring to the Auburn High School quarterback who decided to attend Georgia Tech, because he believes a degree from there will be more valuable in the long run. Apparently this is one football player the Ivy League schools missed.

So Susanna Avery is hot?! I wonder if her mother received those sorts of comments decades ago - when Patsy Avery hosted "Miss Patsy's Playhouse" on TV.

We actually heard from AR twice Sunday - which may show he wasn't interested in those long Super Bowl pre-game shows:

I'm a little confused. Can someone out there help me??? Was the street in the Streetscape project always planned to be an uneven, unlevel ride? I've seen dirt roads that were smoother and more level than that. Another strike against a city I can't express my hatred for enough.

I'm not sure of the answer to this question. Maybe the idea is to make classic cars look more impressive, by bouncing up and down.

(But then again, maybe the idea is to make Broadway more uniform. Have you ever tried driving through the Historic District on those bricks, at more than 20 miles per hour?)

BIG PREDICTION UPDATE: What a dramatic game! What a thrilling game! It was truly a Super Sunday for me - as my beloved Kansas Jayhawks beat nationally-ranked Oklahoma 59-58....

What, you expect me to talk about football?! After the amazing basketball game in Lawrence, where Kansas came back from 16 points down in the second half to win by one?! I'm sorry, I had enough heart-stopping thrills for one day - so Sunday night I worked on my income tax return.

(I mean, this game was SO dramatic and thrilling that almost all the snack foods I bought at the supermarket Friday were gone by the middle of the second half. No, I'm not weighing in today....)

If you watched the Oklahoma-Kansas game, perhaps you wondered as I did why the winning basket wasn't shown on a replay. The Jayhawks' Brandon Rush appeared to shove a defender to the floor, before hitting a jump shot. This could make Rush an early Heisman Trophy contender for next December.

But then again, I have a hunch about why the Brandon Rush "push shot" wasn't challenged by the CBS Sports crew. The play-by-play man was Kevin Harlan - with whom I shared a college sportscasting class years ago. At Kansas....

Now before the celebration gets out of hand, let's check other quick things from Sunday:

+ Columbus Police officers attended a seminar on dealing with autistic people. An expert in the subject told WRBL officers should speak in shorter sentences, and with quiet voices. That always worked for Jack Webb on "Dragnet" 40 years ago.

+ WWE professional wrestling held a star-studded card in Albany. The wrestlers will appear in Columbus Tuesday night - so what will these muscular men do today? If they're behind you in the donut line at Krispy Kreme, keep things quick....

+ Instant Message to Columbus car dealer Billy Cash: You have a special deal on golf carts, right? And you're advertising it on Super Bowl Sunday, while "Jingle Bells" plays in the background?! While you're at it, do you have any leaf blowers on sale?

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