Caterwauling

As I am in mid-move and therefore cannot cook at home (for one, I don’t want to have to throw food away, and two, I packed most of my small appliances), I’ve been hitting the fast-food circuit altogether too much. Which, let’s not talk about the expanding size of my ass, but I digress.

What I’d like to talk about is how EVERY ORDER I have made in the last two weeks has been SCREWED UP in some way. And how I figure that, well, if I only paid a few bucks for the meal, I really don’t have the energy/right to complain. Much.

However, I almost rammed a tip jar up someone’s ass yesterday. And she so would have deserved it. Because SHE was mad at ME for making her REDO my order!!!

Believe it or not, I’m a nice person. I worked in retail for six years and it made me a VERY patient consumer. I can forgive just about any mistake or lack of speed because I know what it’s like to be overwhelmed. Now, I got damn good at my jobs, though, so if I’ve seen you before, you’d BEST know what you’re doing at some point in your life.

Case in point: I am “Sally Albright.” As in, Meg Ryan’s character in “When Harry Met Sally.” I will rewrite a menu and ask for what I want and I will TIP VERY WELL if you can meet my requests.

I’m not talking, “Go out and get gorgonzola cheese because I hate Swiss,” although I really do hate Swiss enough to ask for government cheese. But when I say no ice in my drink, I’m not being an asshole. My teeth are sensitive and the ice drives me bugshit nuts — and I don’t see why I have to explain this in order to get what I want. So in five drive-thru instances, I’ve gotten ice five times — even though you KNOW I requested it without.

The thing with the, ah, melting pot that is D.C., you learn to order by combo number and you order “coke” or “diet” — the less information you offer, the easier it is to get some semblance of what you’d ordered. I have learned this. I am not an idiot. But good lord, when I say I want a No. 1 with no onions or ketchup and a diet with no ice, I am supposed to be OK with receiving a No. 1 with ONLY onions and ketchup and a regular coke WITH EXTRA ICE?!?!

See Dawn flip.

Seriously, I went through a drive-thru last night (Wendy’s, which yeah, I KNOW), only to throw the car in park afterward to walk in and ask for my order — the order I wanted. OMG, the girl behind the counter was so annoyed. Not like I gave two shits — she’s fucked up pretty much every order I’ve ever made there for the past year.

I was nice enough, though. I explained that I opted to do a drive-thru dinner so that I didn’t have to get out of my car (it was 8 p.m. and I hadn’t eaten since noon. Maybe I wasn’t as polite as I’d thought I was). 😉 I gave her a second chance to make me not kill her. All I wanted was a stupid sandwich that had mustard and pickles and lettuce and cheese — hell, keep the damn meat. Fuck me for thinking I could get what I wanted by telling them to omit two items instead of telling them which four I did want.

I also returned the drink. Now THAT pissed her off. That brought me joy. I remember what it was like to make $3.90/hour for being on your feet all day with no breaks or will to live. But even at that miserably low rate, I demanded excellence of myself. Even if the customers were assholes, that never gave me the right to give them attitude or to give them a less-than-desirable customer service experience.

So here’s the kicker. She fixes my order and slams the bag down on the counter — on her side of the counter. I stood there patiently — I wasn’t sure if it were done or not, and as it was out of my reach, I didn’t go for it. She walked back and forth and started bitching in Spanish before finally throwing the bag at me.

Seriously, I am already not opposed to immigration reform — this was not helping me to think that lazy, entitled-feeling assholes who refuse to assimilate to the language and make at least a half-assed effort to not be obnoxious should be granted to stay in my country when there are refugees out there who are trying to go through the proper channels to come here who CAN’T who would be glad to have your spot in this country. (P.S., where do they get off protesting the government when you aren’t paying TAXES to it? And fuck these stupid schools for giving kids class credit to ditch school and go protest — I’m lookin’ at you, Montgomery County. I’m paying for your education, so go get educated.)

I saw the tip jar on the counter. I saw her glance at it. Here’s a newsflash, honey — I said it before, I tip very well when I get great service. I am sort of loath to tip when I order at a counter, but again, knock my socks off and I can make an exception to my rule. But fucking up my order hundreds of times and acting INCONVENIENCED (when I’m the only customer in the store) when I GOD FORBID want my order to be RIGHT, well, here’s a tip: That jar is going to remain empty till the end of time. The only cup that’s going to runneth over is the one I dump over your head the next time you give me regular Coke with ice when I want diet without ice.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 11th, 2006 at 7:47 AM and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.