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May 18, 2004 Yesterday, I decided to eat my dinner at a famous fast food restaurant that will, for the sake of obscurity, remain nameless (although sources can reveal that said restaurant had two golden arches and every menu item starts with “Mc”). While I stood in line waiting to order, I happened to notice that there was a very irate woman in front of me who had been waiting longer than I had been waiting. How do I know she was irate? How do I know she was waiting longer than I had been? She told me. Actually, she told the entire restaurant. Every minute. It came like this: “I have now been waiting for seven minutes!” Then she would pause a few moments and say. “I have now been waiting for eight minutes!” Her wait was due to the fact that when she had ordered her meal she had asked for a promotional discount. Unfortunately, the fourteen-year-old girl who was running the register had already put the order in, and was now off on a Tibetan journey to find where the manager had gone so she could reverse the order and add the discount, thus leaving no one at the registers to take orders. Thankfully, at the ten-minute mark, one of the fifteen-year-old boys who had been filling French fry containers for the drive-through customers decided to come over and open the other register at the front of the restaurant. So I promptly ordered my food and waited while the irate woman (now next to me) continued her count. “I have now been waiting for eleven minutes!” And that’s when it hit me. We have non- existent help at a restaurant! Holy Jeremiah was a bullfrog, do you know what this means?! (Yes it means that I just used the term "Holy Jeremiah was a bullfrog" and am actually going to let it get published. I must be ill.) Does this lack of service actually surprise anyone? When have you ever gotten good service at a place where you are paying less than you’d have to tip the valet in other places? Fast food restaurants hire high school students, give them job experience, and also let them experience what the rude customer who has missed a whole 1/3 of her favorite I Love Lucy re- run is like. So this got me thinking of other things that are non-existent. Most recently, we have found many non-existent things in Iraq. First, we discovered the non-existent evil nature that inhabits us, displayed by some soldiers who had unlimited power over prisoners. Then we discovered the non-existent Al-Qaeda terrorists in Iraq had kidnapped an American (in Iraq, where Al-Qaeda is not at), had murdered that American (in Iraq, where Al-Qaeda is not at), and then had dumped his body (in Iraq, where Al-Qaeda is not at), after recording it for all the world to see. And now, of course, we have the non- existent weapons of mass destruction in the form of nearly four liters of sarin gas in a 155 mm shell. That’s a lot of non-existence to worry about. I mean, this really makes me wonder about other non-existent things. What if they turn out to be as non-existent as sarin gas? We are told that God does not exist, that there is no justice for anyone, that American Idol isn't rigged, that there are no honest politicians. Okay, so I crossed into the realm of absurdity with the last item. Be that as it may, with all these non-existent items that we could dwell on, why should we bother with non-existent service in a fast food restaurant where one would not expect service in the first place? Naturally, I received my McOrder just a second after “I have now been waiting for sixteen minutes!” resonated through the restaurant. And I mused, as I walked out the door, that maybe service would have been faster for a particular someone if she had just shut up and let the workers do their job. ------------ About the author: Peter Pike is omnivorous. He lives in Colorado where he spends his time mocking impatient people by walking really slow. ...In the middle of the highway. Visit his website at PeterPike.com. Email: peter@peterpike.com Tell a friend about this site! ------------ |
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