Happy New Year. I guess. It is 2002, and Im still trying to write dates with 19….. I’ll catch up eventually right? Im not sure about this whole “New Year’s Resolution” thing. I wonder how many people actually follow through on them? If you aren’t going to do it, what is the point? Hell, I can come up with new ideas that I’ll never implement ANY time of the year, I don’t have to wait for New Years. So this year, no resolution. OK, fine, I USED to have them. In fact, I had the same one for 5 years. I finally implemented it the year before last, an event well chronicled here. Actually doing it only made me realize that it was a stupid resolution. So I’ve decided to not do as many stupid things like making resolutions. Uh oh…. that sounds like a resolution itself. DAMMIT!
I drove out to Langley the other day, and my car got hit TWICE in the rear. I was turning left, someone ran the red, and tapped me on the backside (of the car). This got my attention, especially when he drove around me and drove away! So I followed him. He showed me some of his fingers. I was hoping he would drive home so I could get his address, especially since the damn car had no license plates (never a good sign). So then he U-turned and hit me again. I decided not to provoke him further, and fled to another subdivision in order to see exactly what parts of the rear of my car were still attached. I have bounced 5 separate cars off my back bumper, and still, even after this incident, I have yet to find any damage. I like having a bumper that is made of actual metal!! Why are people so psychotic sometimes? Is it because of fast food restaurants? Is there something in the food?
I wonder why they call it “fast food”? It just lays there….
Recently, I have had several incidents with such purveyors of “food” that did not exactly fit the description of “fast”. Lets take the 25 minute wait I had at BurgerThing (names have been changed to protect the guilty) to get my hamburger and onion rings. The guy in front of me, reawakening me from my car exhaust induced stupor, threw his drink back into the take out window accompanied by a string of expletives and general consonant grunting sounds. Then he drove away. I came up to the window, wondering what manner of carnage I might find. Needless to say, the girl behind the window was a tad disgruntled, owing only in part to the recent beverage barrage. She started our particular altercation with the words “Sorry – we are out of onion rings”. I said that this “kept getting better and better” (there had been a few disagreements earlier as to what had been said through the 1920’s era speaker/microphone technology located at the ordering board). She pointed out to me that because they didn’t have them, I didn’t have to pay for them. Well DUH! I did ask why things had been so slow (I mean C’mon- 25 minutes?)… Apparently, there were only 2 people working there! 2 seems like a tad few for a whole restaurant, so I asked to see the manager (I felt like berating someone for some reason…). “OH – he’s at the Christmas party. He said that if I didn’t come in, even though I was sick, I was fired.” She gave me my meal for free – although this might have been because I didn’t throw my drink at her…..
I will almost never actually set foot in a fast food place. I tend to use the drive through. If I’m going to be lazy and go eat the swill they serve at those places, Im going to do it properly – in the laziest manner possible. The LAST time I went into BurgerThing I got into a bit of a “discussion” about the sizes of the onion rings. Rather silly actually, but before doing so I noted that there wasn’t anyone in line behind me.
Me: I’d like a small onion rings, a whopper with cheese and a medium root beer with no ice.
BurgerThing Minion: We don’t have small onion rings, just medium and large.
Me: Why isn’t there a small?
Minion: We don’t have small onion rings, just medium and large.
Me: Why don’t they have a small and a large then, with no medium (attempting to come up with a logical explanation…. to no avail…)
She again reiterated that there were no small onion rings
Me: You have small fries – why not small onion rings?
Minion: The small fries are SMALLER than the medium onion rings, this is why they are small and the rings are medium.
Me: But that doesn’t make any sense! They are still the SMALLEST onion rings!
Minion: So do you want the medium onion rings instead?
Me: Yes. Okay okay…. I want the smallest onion rings!
Minion: Sorry sir, we are OUT of onion rings!
Okay okay….. so she did not actually say that last part. Still, it would have capped off a truly interesting conversation perfectly. The fact that I had just walked around 20 kilometers through North Vancouver while waiting for my car to get fixed might have added to my tenacity (new axle – a repair that I considered somewhat important as things get bad when your wheels fall off…). Never ever try to rationalize something like that or your head might explode. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.
So while BurgerThing can be praised for putting roof extensions over their drive through windows, the rest of the operation needs some fine tuning. For starters, lets upgrade that 1920’s technology in the speaker/ microphone systems. Over 30 years since we sent someone to the moon, you think we’d have figured out how to make a speaker that doesn’t’ make a person’s voice sound like they ARE on the moon….
We now return you to the year 2002, already in progress on a planet near you…..