Free food: When KFC or Denny's gives away food, logic goes out the window

[isilzha]

Free food: When KFC or Denny's gives away food, logic goes out the window

What many of us will wait hours for isn't really worth our time

By Kevin Pang |Tribune reporter

May 26, 2009

A curious sight outside Tribune Tower: A line of office workers and tourists stretched from Pioneer Court to Illinois Street -- a football field in length. The reason? A pizza company was launching a new line of pies and offering free slices to passersby.

It's a physiological function of humans: When food is free, logic is discarded like a Vienna sausageless toothpick.

Consider the economics. A slice of pizza costs the consumer roughly $3. Those in line last week waited 30 minutes or longer. So if you make more than $6 an hour (and if you work near Michigan Avenue, you likely do), it's cost-prohibitive to stand in line for a free piece of pizza -- even a new DiGiorno Flatbread Melt.

And yet, people did it anyway. Once the word "free" is attached to "food," we apply a separate set of standards. Synapses connect to some pleasure center in the brain as if we're hard-wired to travel many miles and wait many minutes for something that actually costs very little.

More

[BerryBaby]

It's just something different for people to do. Who cares if it makes sense (no pun intended) or not. Sure does break up your normal workday schedule. 'Free' is a very good word.

[ibcheft]

free is a word that people associate with no cost at all, well as you can see many do not consider their time worth anything, or yet what else could we have done that would produce better results than a piece of pizza

[Food Network Fan]

I can't believe they stood in line for frozen Pizza. I can't imagine that costs $3 a slice.

[isilzha]

I like free stuff as much as the next person, but I don't bother if I know the lines are going to be huge and I'm going to end up wasting so much time.

[BerryBaby]

It's a novelty for many. I use to do it all the time when I worked in the city (Chicago and San Francisco) and I was a lot younger.

Would I do it today? No. I have better ways to spend my time, and quite honestly, I'd rather just pay for what I would like, not wait for something because it is free.

[bakerman]

It is interesting seeing how people react to free food. We put out samples on a daily basis, and people will go out of there way for a tiny piece of cake in a cup. You should have seen the hoopla when Digorno came to hand out free slices of pizza, they came with a huge semi truck with a built in kitchen that opened up on the side, people formed a line like you wouldn't believe.

I just don't get it.

[SeeingStars6868]

I would never wait in line for something like that. It's a complete waste of time!!