When Will I Ever Learnt. . .
Ok, I go to work early and I usually stop by the 24/7 Mickey D's around the corner from the office to grab a biscuit and a cup of joe. I know, it's probably what's adding to my ever-spreading girth, which I'm having a hard time dealing with because I've been rail skinny my entire life, but I blame no one but myself. Ok, I blame Heineken too.
So this McDonald's. I will now refer to it as "the place that can't seem to get their shit together".
At the place where they can't seem to get their shit together, I order. Then I repeat my order. Sometimes I have to repeat my order again. A couple of days ago, they didn't even acknowledge that I was out there at the speaker waiting like a fool for longer than I care to admit. I left. Eventually.
McDonald's has simplified the menu to the point where you no longer have to say anything outside of a number or size and I'm sure this is to accommodate our ever sagging collective intelligence in America.
My usual order, because I am a creature of habit goes like this:
Unhappy McDonald's Employee: Can I get yo otter?
ME: Yes please, I would like a number three with a medium orange juice and a large black coffee please, thank you.
Unhappy McDonald's Employee: What?
ME: Yes please, I would like a number three with a medium orange juice and a large black coffee please, thank you.
Unhappy McDonald's Employee: What was dat?
ME: Gimme dat numba tree wit a unggge joose and a large cawfee.
Unhappy McDonald's Employee: Dat'll be $4.29, dri up.
I'm not making this up. If I were, I'd be a bigot. Sadly, this is the hard truth.
The epiphany I had in that moment of frustration has led to a little experiment. I am trying my new found language at other restaurants in Jackson. . .well, mostly at the restaurants where communicating through a speaker is the norm.
At the Popeye's, I no longer politely ask for the crispy two piece chicken meal with a biscuit please.
I bark: Gimme dat two peas criss wit a bisit. And I no won't no drank.
Then I drive up and get curious looks from the staff as I return to the Queen's English my mother forced on me as a child. I'm almost certain my food gets doctored from time to time, but I'm willing to sacrifice for my mad little experiment.
Back to Mc'D's.
Regularly, my order is screwed. Leaving off cheese, not including the hash brown, putting the cinnamon roll in the box upside down so I have to scrape the icing out of the bottom of the box. Really people, just how hard is it to cook at McDonald's? It's not like there is a raft of prep cooks in the back tending to large vats of veal stock or rolling up foie gras "torchons" in cheesecloth for later poaching.
This cooking is: remove cold, precooked meat product, heat to serving temperature, put on bun. And they even have pictographs to help them remember the sequence. Why can't I get the cheese I so crave in the mornings???
I'm not sure who is more afflicted. Them, because they can't "read" a picture or me because I keep showing up expecting quality service. And the attitude from the employees of this store is just horrendous.
Lately, I've been grumbling to myself how I wished I knew who to write so I can complain and 'lo and behold, today, posted on the drive-through windows was exactly THAT. "Please send you comments and complaints to the person who has the worst job on the planet."
Now I am confounded. Do I write the letter? And if I so, which language do I use?
I guess I'll be going to Sonic from now on.
Toast, everything you've described makes me think of an old Jack Nicholson movie. If you've ever seen "Five Easy Pieces" there was a scene in a restaraunt where Jack tries to order some toast in a diner. The shit that he has to go through just to get some toast is classic.
Does it suprise you that in a 5th grade classroom of 22 students, in a suburb not far from the "big city", usa... 5 of those students could not correctly provide an answer to the following:
"Billy has 8 apples. Sally has twice as many. How many apples does Sally have?" How bout dem apples?
Dem apples are rotten.
We all have our own vernacular, accents, dialects and idiosyncrasies that make our "local" languages unique, but what I wrote about exposes a larger issue within certain societies.
English is, love it or hate it, the language of the world. English is like the American dollar; accepted everywhere in the US and in a lot of places abroad. Why not learn to speak it properly? Why not learn the basics of a second language to augment your opportunities in life? There seem to be some detached segments of our America that refuse to learn anything in an effort to keep the long, bony finger of collective defiance in the eye of everyone.
Refusing to learn is the slow suicide of your own opportunity and people who do this to themselves are not victims, but fools.
Greasy, that is a great scene.
Did you know that one of the women at the table in none other than Toni Basil the dancer/choreographer and one-hit wonder queen from "Oh Mickey you're so fine" fame.
God, I'm glad the 80's are over!
Toni Basil - seems like she's been around forever. She still looks pretty good too. She also played on the hookers in Easy Rider.