I try to avoid fast food for many reasons, not the least of which is the poor service I usually get there. I won’t even bother with the obvious discussion about the fat that goes from the taco directly to my ass. Truer words were never spoken than those by Joe Pesci in Lethal Weapon 2: “They F*&K you at the drive-thru!”
When my husband, kids and I first moved to Florida, we found out soon enough that we were in for a special treat. The drive thrus in Florida are manned by some very interesting people indeed. With little exception, most of them have some serious, kickass attitude. I’m not exactly sure why they’re working, because they don’t seem happy to be there, and they’re definitely not in any hurry to get the job done. ”Fast food” in Florida, if accurately named, would be something more like “Fast If I Damn Well Feel Like It, And I Probably Won’t Food”. Maybe it’s some sort of mass work-release program with which I’ve been confronted. In any case, it’s always an event when we go, and while irritating at the time, generally ends up giving us endless free entertainment along with our transfats; so all in all, it’s a value meal for certain!
Our first trip for some Drive Thru ‘Tude was at place called ‘Checkers’. We had little kids at the time, who ate happy meals and drank milk only. (Mommy gets the soda and beer, and kids get the milk) So we drive up to the speaker and my husband proceeds to give our order to the Checkers drive-thru lady, telling her that we’d like milk with our kids’ meals. We heard a commotion (it sounded like someone bobbing her head from side to side muttering something like “oh no you dit-n’t”), and then her voice came over the speaker loud and clear with, “WE AIN’T GOT NO MILK!” Only, the word “milk” sounded more like “meelk”.
So my husband looks at me, and I look at him. We send telepathic messages to one another (we don’t speak our thoughts aloud because 1) we have kids and know those words will be repeated at the wrong time some day in the future, and 2) we don’t want to eat hawk-tooey hamburgers, so we are careful not to piss off the drive thru lady), and then my husband responds with, “Well, what do you use to make milk shakes then?” This menu had about ten different milkshakes you could order, so it was a valid question. As if speaking to a person with serious mental retardation, she responds, “SHAKE MIX!” Only, the word “shake” sounded more like “shayek” and the work “mix” sounded more like “meeyix”.
Okaaaay then. We’ll just have three shakes then. Vanilla. Thank you ma’am. Thank you for not putting “extras” in our hamburgers. We really appreciate all your hard work here in the drive-thru at the Checkers today. And your professionalism, that was much appreciated as well.
As we drove away from Checkers, and starting divvying up the goodies, I realized we were missing the fries for every order. Sigh. Did we go back? No. I wasn’t in the mood for eating a bag of fries that I knew would contain some that were probably scooped up from the floor (to teach me a lesson, no doubt). We just took our lumps and left, sans milk, sans fries, looking forward to the next opportunity we would have to submit ourselves to a good f(*#ing in the drive thru.
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