A few years ago, I went to a local Burger King, which was then famous for bad service. I saw a long line ahead of me, gritted my teeth, and joined the line's end. A few others drizzled in behind me over the next few minutes. The bottleneck, at the head of the line, was a group of five or six guys who seemed to be having various problems with their orders: wrong items, wrongly prepared items, and the like. I saw one person come back and tell a woman behind the counter that he'd gotten X, but had ordered Y. She put in an order for Y. After a few more minutes of delay, Counter Woman refunded another guy's money. Y came up. The person who ordered Y looked at his food and said it was wrong: he's ordered Z. His money was then refunded also. As another refund went out, Counter Woman didn't so much hand the change as sort of tossed it six or twelve inches toward the refund-seeker's hands. Thus passed the matter from one of food to one of honor (as you might guess, this had happened earlier, but honor was now explicit). Wronged Man raised his voice, yelling epithets at Counter Woman. The one I remember in particular was, "I'll come back there and slap you like a bitch."
Now this writer has a common problem: he feels he should try to fix other persons' emotional problems. He'd felt his problem arise earlier, but stifled it. He realized he could walk out, but decided instead to practice control by saying to himself, "I don't have to fix this. I don't have to fix this." He repeated this to himself while the incident played out.
Meanwhile, the last epithet changed Counter Woman, Hulk-like, into what I can only describe as Enraged Head-Shaking Black Woman. She employed the characteristic alternating head tilt, raised voice, and wagging finger thereof. Her side of the "dialogue" contained statements like, "Come back here and slap me like I'm a bitch! You come back here and slap me like a bitch, and I'll show you something!"
Finally, the guys left -- some with food, some without. I stepped up, placed my order, and got it, correctly and in reasonable time. Sometime while waiting, I turned to look at the line behind me. Not a soul was there: they had all left.
...and people wonder why I don't enjoy fast food ;)
Posted by: Kira | 27 February 2005 at 12:32 PM
I have many fond memories of that Burger King... oh, wait, no I don't. It was a pit and I always expected the cashier to pull out a crack pipe while I was waiting in line.
And I never got busy in the bathroom.
Posted by: Eric | 01 March 2005 at 04:08 PM