Fun at McDonalds
“Welcome to McDonald’s, can I help you?”
“Yes, I’ll have a chicken nugget combo, please.”
“Coke to drink?”
“No, a coffee, please.”
“One small coffee.”
“What? Uh, no. Wait. Hold on. I want – why is it a small coffee? You get a medium-sized Coke with a combo.”
[blank stare]
“I’d like a medium-sized coffee.”
“That will cost extra.”
“You were already just about to give me a medium Coke with my meal. Just give me a medium coffee.”
“They’re different things, sir.”
“Yes, I realize that. But they cost the same, don’t they?”
“No, sir. They don’t.”
“Oh.” [looking at menu] “No, you’re right.”
“So a small coffee, sir?”
[looking at menu] “The medium coffee is forty cents cheaper than a medium Coke.”
“I can biggie size your coffee for fifty cents, if you like.”
“But then I’m paying half a dollar more to substitute a drink that costs a half-dollar less than the drink I’m substituting. You’re charging me almost a dollar more than it is on the menu.”
[blank stare]
“Just give me a Coke then.”
“Janice, is there a problem?”
“He wanted a coffee–”
“Oh, well just press the button here for a small coffee.”
“No, I don’t WANT a small coffee. Just – a Coke, please, give me a–”
“Oh. Sorry, sir, I’ve already pressed the coffee button.”
“I – fine. FINE.”
“Here’s your meal, sir.”
“Can I get sauce for the nuggets?”
“What kind of sauce, sir?”
“Uh, sweet and sour.”
“We don’t have that, sir.”
“Oh.”
“All we have is barbecue sauce.”
“Then why did you ask me?”
[blank stare] “They’re different things, sir.”
“Fine.”
[ten minutes later]
“Excuse me?”
“Yes, sir?”
“It’s just you didn’t – there weren’t any fries with my meal.”
[blank stare]
“You didn’t give me fries with my meal.” [pause] “The fries. That come with a meal.”
“Oh.” [looking around] “There’ll just be a ten minute wait for the fries.”
“But I’ve already eaten.”
“If you’d like to wait for the fries, they’ll be ten minutes.”
What I did not say: “No, you know what, fuck the fries, fuck your horrible service, and fuck your stupid restaurant. Honestly, I know none of this is your fault. I’ve worked at these places before, and I understand you don’t make any of the decisions here, and you don’t order the sauce, and it’s not your fault that you’re so understaffed no one’s manning the fry machine. But that’s exactly the fucking point, isn’t it? There’s no accountability anymore. These big corporate leviathans came in and sit their greedy asses down on every street, and they’ve taken over so completely that people expect this level of shitty service now. We actually expect it and don’t mind. We’re used to the awful food and the mistakes and the senseless fucking menus and bussing our own trays, because most of us have never even known anything else from a fast food restaurant, because greedy assholes ran all the real fast food restaurants out of business by giving us cheap food for less money that tastes like garbage. If this was a mom and pop operation, the manager would be out here cooking my burger, and it might taste different every goddamn time, but if I wanted a coffee instead of a Coke, he would give me a coffee instead of a Coke, and he wouldn’t charge me extra, because I’m a customer and a person and he’d value my fucking business and wouldn’t be sitting ten thousand miles away in some huge building, counting his goddamn stacks of money and coming up with new ways to charge me an extra dollar for a fucking cup of hot fucking water with filtered fucking coffee grounds in it!”
What I did say: “No, forget it.”