You are write.
by jim karwisch
Our cash register is down.
The rain was a pounding, aggressive sheet of water raging against buildings, cars and trees like an overgrown angry toddler. I live in Atlanta GA which means that at the sight of rain, all of the drivers panic. If there is heavy rain, then all of the drivers panic and stop where they are staring at the rain as though it were the apocalypse.
Though my wife and I are not normally fast food consumers, last night was an exception. Mary being on bed-rest with me being tired and cranky combined to the perfect storm of Whoppers and Fries. I pulled into the Burger King drive-thru in my Honda Civic and waited patiently behind a large red F250. Nothing happened. I could hear the man ahead of me making an order so I continued to wait, listening to the last few minutes of my audio book. As David Sedaris narrated the last paragraph of his book and Audible.com thanked me for giving them my hard earned money, I began to get a little worried. This was taking a really long time.
I began to look around for signs of what might be going on. This is when I first noticed that the drive-thru was surrounded tightly by a concrete border. Uh oh. Once you were in the line, you were committed to this process unless you wanted to drive over this high concrete curb and through the expensive Burger King landscaping. It then dawned on me that if I had driven my Ford Escape I could already be out of there. This was not the case as I formerly mentioned. I was in a Honda. All I could accomplish is quickly tearing off my front fender while remaining trapped.
Still, nothing happened. No one moved.
This continued for a good 5 minutes until finally the man in front of me crept forward far enough for me to get in position to order. A woman’s voice came over the speaker “Hello.” It said “Um… We can’t… I mean, we don’t have… I mean… Our cash register is down.”
I waited to see what this would mean for me. She said nothing else so I replied “Does this mean I can’t order anything?”
“Um…” pause “Yes… You can’t order anything.” And she was gone. I made the assumption that the other people ahead of me had been told the same thing and waited for the whole line of cars to empty out. No one moved. This went on for another 5 minutes.
When I was finally able to round the bend and see the window, they were indeed slowly handing food to people in cars. When the red truck reached the window it stopped and waited. I must assume he was giving them a really dirty look and hoping one of them would turn around and see how displeased he was. None of them approached. We continued to wait.
I wanted somehow to contact the man ahead of me and form a union. He could take out all of the landscaping with his truck and I could go inside and give them a piece of my mind. Instead I gave him a really dirty look for giving the staff a really dirty look. Eventually he gave up and drove away. I drove away as well. 25 minutes later I had nothing to show for my misery, but the rain was too heavy for me to get out and go inside.
Five Guys Burgers will now get all of my future orders. Burger King, you are a knave.
