Not-so-fast food

Today's entry is not about KMart. Enjoy, regardless.

On Mondays and Wednesday when I teach classes in the evenings, I am likely to stop by one of the fast-food places near my house to grab a quick bite before heading out of town.

Today, I went to McDonalds. Seeing how long the drive through line was, and wanting to make sure my ice/sweet tea ratio was acceptable, I decided to go inside and order. Mistake #1.

The girl taking orders was training. Of course, she was training without a trainer. So go to order. I ask for, and I quote, "I'd like a McDouble, with just ketchup on it. And a medium fry and large soft drink."

She starts punching buttons. After about 15-20 seconds, she looks at me and says, "You want what kind of McDouble?"

So I repeat. She punches a bunch more buttons. Then goes and asks the woman making smoothies to "come over here when you're done." So I have to wait for someone in the drive-through to get their strawberry-banana smoothie before Clueless can punch in "McDouble only ketchup."

Smoothie lady comes over, and does it for her. Asking all sorts of questions about substitutions and crap, and I'm like, "I don't want to substitute anything. I just want a McDouble with only ketchup." So she goes, "Oh, okay," and Smoothie goes "click, click, click" and orders me my damn McDouble. So then Clueless looks at me and says, "And you wanted what else?"

I was a little irritated at this point, because I needed to get driving. But I answer politely that I want "a medium fry and a large soft drink."

She punches about 20 buttons, gives me my total, I swipe the debit card, and I'm thinking, we're on our way. So I step back so she can help the next person. She turns and looks at me and says, "Did you want your sundae plain?"

I must have looked at her like she had a second head growing out of her abdomen or something, because I was like, "What foxtrottin' sundae?" Instead, I said, "I didn't order a sundae."

She looked like she was about to cry and asks again what I ordered. So I walk over and say slowly, "A McDouble, a medium fry, and a large soft drink."

Somehow, "Large Soft Drink," got translated into, "Plain Sundae." Thank Thor they were the same price. I figuered she would just hand me a cup. Oh no, she has to re-ring "Large Soft Drink" and I was gonna be t'd off if she tried to make me pay. Thankfully, she didn't. And by the time I filled up my cup with just the right amout of ice and sweet tea, my McDouble with only ketchup and the fries were ready to go.

She apologized for messing up the order, said that it was her first day training. After that, I felt a little bad for her, because she was alone at the registers, and it was 5:00. She was about to have a really, really bad first day. I may have gotten irritated, but I'm a helluva lot nicer than most people, especially hungry ones with screaming children, are.