JoshCarnes.com

Free food has always been hard for me to resist. Just ask any of my friends’ parents. Their refrigerators cringe at the site of me. So when Chick-fil-A offered a one year supply of free combo meals to the first 100 customers in line at the grand opening of their first Kansas City area restaurant, I was number 4 in line. Both me and Matt, a friend from work, planted oursleves in the parking lot a full 24 hours before it opened to ensure that we wouldn’t miss out.

Knowing it was going to be a long day, Matt had arranged to “borrow” WiFi from a neighboring home and redistribute it to those of us waiting in line. This helped fight the boredom for the first several hours as I chatted with friends on instant messenger and caught up on the latest stories on Digg. The real party began that evening though as more people began to show up. Not only did Chick-fil-A offer free meals, they also gave away prizes and hired a D.J. for a portion of the night. The guy next to us rolled out a putting green and invited anyone interested to work on their golf swing while me and someone I’d met in line set up a TV and Playstation2 so we could rock out on Guitar Hero well into the wee hours of the night.

Over all, it was a great experience, and now that I’ve got a year’s supply of Chick-fil-A combos, maybe those refridgerators I mentioned earlier can finally get a well deserved rest…but not likely.