Jun 12, 2012

meditations on fast food

Today, at lunch, I was starving. I went to a Popeyes...which is surprisingly unusual. I stand there waiting and waiting for someone to maybe stop talking and maybe even greet me. Seems Queesha had quite a night last night.
No one does. So I leave.

 On the way out I hold the door open for a man marching right back in with his food, presumably the wrong food. "Good luck to him," I think.

Next, I drive to Mcdonald's, but there is not a single space in which to park. None.
 What are they serving there? Crack?
 I drive a bit further, about to faint with hunger.

 Oh yes, there's a Burger King...but that's always a sad little place, oh well, at least there's a place to park.

 I get in line.
My cashier is a 60 something white lady with nicotine colored hair and a voice to match. She barks at the small elderly Hispanic man in front of me:
 "Can I take your order?"

He holds up his finger to show a one and the other to show a four.
 "Can I take your order?" she repeats gruffly.
 He points to the number 4 more emphatically.

 "Can I take your order?" she repeats more loudly.

 "I think he wants a number 4," I tell her.
"You want a number four? Or four number ones?" She asks.
He points again to the number 4.
I repeat what he wants.
She asks again, more rudely still: "Can I take your order?"

He walks away, upset.
She seems happy he's left.
 I'm pissed.
I watch him walk across the highway to who knows where.

 As I eat my lonely little burger, with nothing better to do, I listen to the orders.
 Just about everyone who orders begins with "I need..."
"I need a number 1, no cheese, no pickle...." and so forth.
"Need"? Really?
I've never paid attention to this before.
I always preface my order with "I'd like..."
I mean I certainly don't *need* a Whopper Jr.
I'm not even sure I'd *like* it...but it seems the better thing to say.

8 comments:

savannah said...

the concept of service has eluded far too many people these days, sugar. re the woman at burger king, seems she likes pushing her own ugly personal agenda at work...xoxooxox

The Cool Cookie said...

I've always wondered why Burger King can't get it's shit together as a company. How hard is it to develop a corporate culture for a burger chain?

Anonymous said...

Needy + Greedy = Beefy

ayeM8y said...

At the drive through I always say, "Let me please have..."

Inside I'll say, "Give me a cheeseburger, fry and a coke...Clerk!" Sometimes I mix it up and say, "Bitch!"

People are terrified that workers will spit in their food so I watch them carefully and drop the owners name.

And if they mess up my order then I shift into burger rage.

normadesmond said...

you might have considered ear plugs today.

btom89 said...

Hi. I love your tumblr blog. I posted two vintage pictures (that I tweaked in Instagram) and was hoping to pimp them out to other vintage blogs. I really like the look and was hoping to get more exposure for them. They'd be the third from top and second from bottom of the first page (as of today). It's fine if you don't want to cross-blog those. Keep up the good posting.

btom89 said...

Sorry, my blog is wolfgangbang.tumblr.com. I don't know why I left it out

Anonymous said...

thoughtful, very thoughtful. just what I needed today. or liked.