Thank you so much for the review. I’ve never felt quite comfortable with the way the first line read myself, so I’m thankful for the suggestion. And yes, I am talking about something that happened in the past as if it’s happening now, but I felt I was pretty consistent as far as my use of tenses in the story.
And…you don’t mess with Sean when he is hungry because it’s like poking a grizzly bear with a chocolate covered stick…no good can come of it.
Humor/Satire / Fast Food?
Chicken. Fried chicken. All we wanted on that fateful Friday night was some damn chicken. A relatively simply acquisition, right? Let’s find out, shall we?
7:15 pm – Sean and I pull up to the KFC on the corner of Messner and Hempwood. ”HELLO” comes the obnoxious sounding voice from the other side of the speaker. ”Hello?” I say, probably sounding equally obnoxious. I have a bad feeling about this place already. Which is only worsened after I have to repeat three times my order for an eight-piece bucket of original recipe chicken with mashed potatoes and coleslaw.
Then there are the gawd awful silences. Starting with a twenty-second pause right about now. Then we hear this:
“Will that be all?”
“I’d also like a BLT salad with roasted chicken.”
Thirty seconds of silence. Then we get this:
“Wait, what did you want again?”
“A BLT salad with roasted chicken.”
“A BLT salad with roasted chicken?”
“Yes.”
Thirty more seconds of silence.
“What kind of dressing would you like with that?”
“No dressing please.”
“No dressing?”
“No. No dressing.”
We’re treated to another minute and a half of silence, then some background noise over the speaker. Then a few more seconds of silence.
At this point, Sean is getting extremely aggravated. He’s hungry, and this is one man you do not want to mess with when he’s hungry. He tells me he wants to just leave without getting anything and go somewhere else. It just so happens we get the perfect opportunity to do just that. Suddenly, we hear this:
“Welcome to KFC, can I take your order?”
Seriously? We didn’t get a “Drive up to the next window” or “That’ll be $16.87” or anything?
So I say: “Actually, we just placed an order, and I’d like to cancel it.”
“The whole order?!”
“Yeah.”
I’m pretty ticked off myself at this point, so I peel out of the KFC drive-thru and make my way to Messner. I’ll just go south, since there happens to be plenty of fast food establishments in that direction that must be immensely better than where we just came from.
I suggest Taco Bell. We haven’t been there in a while, and I could really go for a Meximelt. Sean really wants chicken, but after the KFC fiasco and the fact that it is now 7:25 pm, he doesn’t really care what we get any more. In what will turn out to be an ironic statement later, I say “You know, that Taco Bell hasn’t really had good service in the past. But I guess since KFC has had consistently bad service, and Taco Bell has only had marginally bad service, hopefully it won’t be too bad this time.” What a knee slapper that was.
7:30 pm – We pull up to the drive-thru at Taco Bell. There is a van at the speaker box in front of us. We don’t wait too long before the van pulls away from the speaker, behind a car that is sitting at the window. So we drive up to the speaker, at which point the man on the other side asks if we can wait a few minutes. ”Sure.” I say. No problem. So we wait. And wait. And two more cars pull up behind us. About five minutes have passed, and no voice has been heard over the speaker. A girl in the car behind me yells “HEY!”. Since I’m getting more and more angry, I thrust my head out the window to look back at her, with my hand on the handle in case I have to get out and beat someone down.
“Not you!” she says, “I was talking to the speaker!”
So I speak up. “Excuse me…are you ready now?”
“No ma’am, not yet. One more second please.”
Second my ass.
Finally after another minute or so, the guy comes back.
“Can I take your order ma’am?”
“I’d like two number ones, one without tomatoes or onions.”
“And what kind of drinks would you like with those ma’am?”
“Make them both Pepsi.”
Short pause here.
“I’m sorry. We don’t have any more Pepsi right now.”
Oh my lord…are these people kidding me? Sean is getting really upset, and he says he doesn’t want anything to drink then, because all the other choices suck. But since I just ordered two meals which come with drinks, and I don’t want to have to waste any more precious time explaining to the guy that I don’t want drinks or having to re-order everything without drinks, I tell him to make them both root beers.
“Will that be all?”
“No, I’d like a number nine with Diet Pepsi. You DO have Diet Pepsi don’t you?”
“Yes ma’am…will that be all?”
“Yes, that’s it.”
“Ok, that’ll be $13.08. Please drive up to the window.”
It’s at this point that I realize that the car that was at the window when we first drove up is STILL at the window, with the van behind it. And Taco Bell has this nifty little drive-thru lane that is completely curbed in, so that you can’t leave unless you have an off-road vehicle or are willing to mangle the under carriage of your car trying to get over the curb. So we play the waiting game. For a while.
7:40 pm – The van FINALLY pulls up to the window. The person inside the van gets three drinks and no food. So we sit for about 5 minutes waiting for the food to come out. Now Sean is steaming. He says that when we get up to the window, he’s going to tell Taco Bell to keep their fucking food and we’re going to go somewhere else. I ask him to just go inside (since I’m driving) and ask them to cancel our order so that we don’t have a confrontation at the window. He doesn’t want to do that, so we wait some more.
7:50 pm – We pull up to the window. All I see are our drinks sitting on the counter by the window. No food. The guy repeats our total. He looks like hell. I’m sure he hasn’t had too many nice customers this evening. Sean feels bad for the guy and goes to give him his credit card, but I stop him because I know that if we have to wait any longer, his head is going to explode. So I ask the guy “Have they started making our order yet?”
“I’m sorry ma’am, but we’re really short staffed tonight.”
“Well I think we might need to cancel it, my husband is getting really upset…”
“You want to cancel it?”
“Yeah, kinda.” I say “kinda” because even I feel bad for the guy, but we just can’t wait anymore. So he tells someone in the back that we don’t want our food any more, and I thank him (for what, I don’t know) and drive away.
We’re back on Messner now, this time going north. I suddenly have a flash of brilliance.
“I know where we can go! Old Faithful!”
“Huh?”
“WHATABURGER! They are always fast and cheap and we like their food. Let’s just go there. We’ve never had ANY problems at Whataburger!” (This is where I jinxed myself.)
“Yeah, whatever. I really wanted chicken, but I don’t want to put up with this bullshit any more. So that’s cool.”
And it’s off to Whataburger we go.
7:55 pm – We pull up to the speaker box and place our order right away. Two number fives (chicken sandwiches, one without tomato) with unsweetened ice tea and one A-1 Jr. Whataburger meal with Diet Coke. The friendly voice on the other side repeats everything back right the first time, gives us our total, and asks us to pull up to the second window. Smooth burger sailing. I just know this is going to be another great Whataburger experience!
There is another car at the window when we pull up, but we only wait a minute or so before they leave. We get to the window and I’m handed my Diet Coke right away. I give the nice lady Sean’s credit card, she swipes it and gives us our receipt. What a breath of fresh fast food air! We wait for about five minutes, at which point I start to get a little nervous. I see the tea container being refilled. ’That’s why we didn’t get the iced teas right away’ I think to myself. No biggie.
Until we hear this: ”Ma’am, can you please pull up? The chicken isn’t done cooking. We’ll bring your food out to you when it’s ready.”
FAN-FUCKING-TASTIC!
So we pull up and wait. And wait. While we’re waiting, the Camaro behind us starts to pull away from the window, and it looks like he might not have enough room to get out. I start to pull forward, but he makes it before I have a chance to move and drives off.
More waiting.
I’m watching Sean play chess on his cell phone when I hear someone yell “Can you please pull up!?”
A little Honda Civic that was in line behind the Camaro is trying to get out. Now, what I want to know is, how can a guy in a Camaro figure out how to get past my bumper, but this guy in a little Civic can’t maneuver? Whatever. I pull forward and the Honda guy drives by, and then I get my answer. He looks like he’s fifteen years old.
‘Go back to driver’s ed, you moron.’ I think to myself.
I look in my side mirror and see a Whataburger employee bringing our food. Yes! She gives us the food and starts to walk away when I realize we still don’t have two iced teas. I call her back.
“Excuse me…we’re missing two iced teas.”
“Oh, ok. Let me go get those for you. What size were they?”
“Um…I don’t know. Whatever size comes with the meal.”
“Alright, I’ll be right back with your drinks.”
And she’s gone. While she’s back in the restaurant getting the tea, a guy in a big black Ford truck, and the guy behind him with a grey Nissan pick up both pull out past us from the window. I look at my watch as the pick up drives by. It’s 8:10 pm. We’ve officially spent almost an entire hour trying to get some “fast” food.
After Sean plays another game of chess, she finally comes back with our tea. For our wait, Whataburger has given us two complimentary fried pies. It’s not much, but it does make us feel a little better. Their fried pies are pretty damn good.
We get back on the road. Thankfully, we don’t live far from Whataburger, so it only takes us a few minutes to get to the house. Keep in mind, we had just gone grocery shopping before we stopped at KFC, so we are in a rush to get our dairy and meat products in the fridge as soon as possible. Hopefully we won’t die of food poisoning.
At the end of the day, we finally sit down to watch House and eat the slowest fast food we’ve ever eaten (and hopefully will ever have to eat)!
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TrevorSamuels reviewed Version 2 -
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Yet another example of the extremely poor service we all have to live with. It seems no one cares anymore, people do as little as possible to collect a paycheck. I encounter this kind of service everywhere. As a side note, we have a KFC that is exactly like the one you have described. I’ve seen countless people walk away in frustration. Keep your piece just the way it is, I wouldn’t change a word.
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bunchesofdonald reviewed Version 2 -
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“A relatively simply acquisition, right? Let’s find out, shall we?” – I think this part of the line could be dropped entirely, then the first part combined with the first paragraph. As it is it’s a little pedantic.
You seem to mix tenses quite a bit, for example “Then there are the gawd awful silences. Starting with a twenty-second pause right about now. Then we hear this” You talk about something in the past and then say it’s happening right now. Also rather than stating there was silence, describe the silence it’ll make for a more interesting line.
Why don’t we want to mess with Sean when he is hungry?
Quote_Th3_Raven reviewed Version 2 -
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That is rediculous. We’ve all been there though (for me it’s a Carl’s jr. that never gets your order right). I was entertained the whole time, but I just don’t understand why you didn’t stick it out with taco bell. You were at the window. It would have been faster to just wait then to drive to another joint, right? I don’t know the area, but it still seems that way to me.
malyshka reviewed Version 2 -
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Semi after three times in the beginning. Im pretty ticked off right now (you don’t need the myself)...There are a few paragraph errors, but nothing real serious. I didn’t really notice much…I like this story, it is very amusing. The reader can really relate to. Well done, I will be looking forward to another story.
Majireon reviewed Version 2 -
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The only thing I would do differently, is to emphasize the grocery shopping thing a bit earlier to make the time waited, have more of an impact, as you read the story. Other than that, it seems like a solid peice of work. I liked it, and having been in the same situation a few times, I thought this was hilarious.
inxthexpinesx reviewed Version 2 -
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this was very good in the area that i told a coherent story that had substance and a plot. i see that all the time on this site:people just publish a punch line. i could see this published in a book of short satrical memoirs .(similar to a augusten burroughs book)some readers may find some of it boring to read at time but what i suggest to keep them entertained and keep im the good detail youve got going is to work on an ending that will make them say to themselves:”well it was alot to read but it had a funny ending”, also you could add some more personal humor in the point of view of a memoir. do this by adding in more phrases such as: “i didnt see it then”. youve already done this a little but with a little more and this ipiece would really stand out. Another good humore tool you could use to keep a reader hooked is to add your opinion about someone in parentheses. Example if you were talking about one of the:drive thru workers “bob” you could do some thing like this”....bob(still lives with mother)...”
adamsk13 reviewed Version 2 -
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you switched tenses once or twice (from present to “This is where I jinxed myself”—past.) it can go either way, but i suggest sticking with present tense. it helps keep the reader in the here and now of the story.
other than that, i enjoyed this little story. have you ever seen the movie (i forget the characters’ names) but it’s called (character) and (character) go to white castle—this reminded me a lot of that movie.
SarahBloom reviewed Version 2 -
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I can’t tell you how many times my husband and I have gotten groceries and then stopped to pick up “fast” food on the way home. We are usually both a little tired and grumpy at that point (grocery shopping is really a huge pain, as it often leads to arguments about things like healthier eating and budgeting), and neither of us feels like going home and cooking. But it looks like in the time it took to get your fried chicken sandwiches you could have gone home and made Duck a L’orange!
In other words, this piece is entirely relatable and it made me laugh out loud. The sheer horror of the incompetents in the world! I enjoyed the details you used, the descriptions and dialogues, and you made some points that really hit home.
JamesPatrick reviewed Version 2 -
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This is funny…but could be funnier. The reader should be reminded what the purpose of your journey is…to get fast food. Your story is suspect to empathy, but doesn’t contribute anything new to the horrors of trying to get fast food. I’d like to see more specific details, and less narrative descriptions—-”he was feeling this…” I liked the comment about the younger driver, and I felt your frustration.
It’s funny. It just doesn’t read like Woody Allen, Douglas Adams, or Garrison Kieller. Thanks for sharing.
shinsukato reviewed Version 2 -
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I usually have a hard time critiquing pieces of any significant length, but here goes.
In the very beginning you have a slightly awkward word choice with ‘acquisition’. It seems that ‘request’ would be the better word here.
You didn’t stick to conventional grammar much overall, so it might not be a problem to you, but your use of commas was a little haphazard. Commas are basically all I know well when it comes to punctuation.
I enjoyed the read all the way up to the end, where I found that it faltered a little bit (nothing too significant though).
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