Waiting for a damn food order
Everyone eats fast food daily. Either in the morning, afternoon, or evening they’ll get more fast food than making a home-cooked meal. Wouldn’t say you’d be born receiving fast food quickly but eventually, you’d go out and get it because your hungry. Depending on the day a fast food business will make any customer wait for their order to be cooked. It’s not just your order but other orders being sent down the cooking line. All orders will be eaten by the customers who could get their food before you. Yet somehow your frustration becomes worse and worse until you have your “happy meal” but couldn’t enjoy the meal.
My childhood breakfast not made from home was a breakfast burrito from Molcasalsa, a Mexican fast food place. There I order ham, eggs, cheese, and potatoes cooked inside a burrito and chow down whenever I have occasional morning breakfast. The problem was the place was understaffed and a thirty-minute to an hour wait to receive my order. That time I entered the small restaurant noticing nearly thirty people inside the place waiting to eat in or take-to-go. I ordered my breakfast burrito and waited half an hour but the people that ordered before me were waiting forever. Service was poorly handled at that time. How bad the service was I received my breakfast over every other customer on stand-by that each one of their faces portrayed a hostile stare that one guy so pissed off calmly tells me, “Fuck you man!”
Hearing his voice before I open the restaurant’s side door looking at him. Shocked. It felt like time froze a few seconds. I come out of it blink three times and head out driving all the way home. Feeling odd and sick, I had a difficult time swallowing my breakfast only to come down with a stomach ache hours later.
Regardless of that morning, an afternoon ice cream makes anyone’s day cooler. That’s what I hoped for. It happened on a Wednesday, three days after I got sick eating a breakfast burrito. The day was hot, the heat felt forever creating heat waves, and I’m in search of some ice cream and then I see it. Cold Stone. Make a pit stop, head into the place, and see seven people ahead of me in line. One person working the front counter as well as the cashier. Understaffed would seem like an understatement. Like I’ll wait for an eternity craving for a scoop of ice cream irritatingly my belly. Time passes by looking outside and already a line is beginning to build up and people were becoming more and more agitated. All I could do was check my phone.
The young lady working the front asks me what ice cream I wanted. Pistachio ice cream in a cone, one scoop. I pay for my order and wait a little longer. Too many people crowd the Cold Stone. Little by little ice cream, Sundays pile up the counter. To me, I saw the ice creams as ice cream Wednesdays as the stress on the young ladies’ face notices me in the crowd hangry customers finish up one ice cream special handing me my pistachio ice cream.
Take the ice cream from the young lady saying thank you. Only to turn around in cold silence inside Cold Stone. Everyone staring at me, I, wearing shorts and sandals holding the ice cream cone like a child as a shiver runs down my spine. Walked out in dead silence. Eat my ice cream sitting in a park but throw it away in disgust that all those people got skipped over with a disgusted look on all their faces.
That coming Friday a friend and I hang out at Knots Berry Farm. It was in October so it was called Knots Scary Farm because of the Halloween season. We’re both having a good time, jump scares, going anywhere through haunted mazes, loving life on the fright. We both didn’t eat anything the whole day deciding to cut out early before it gets any darker heading into Burger King for our dinner. Going inside we’re the only two customers in the place. I order two cheeseburgers, fries, and coke while my friend orders the chicken sandwich, fries, and coke. Sat down on the cushioned seats and about five minutes I get my order. My friend hasn’t got his order yet and I decide to hold off until my buddy gets his food.
A few moments passed, our stomachs growling from the hunger sounded like thunder inside the both of us. Wondering why my friend’s meal hasn’t been served yet? I tell him I’m gonna eat my cheeseburger. Unwrap the patty but before I take a bite I look over to my friend looking hangry. So I decided to give him my other cheeseburger and fries to hold his hunger over. Somehow as he unwraps the paper covering the cheeseburger we both hear his order is ready. We both look at each other, laugh to ourselves, and chow down on our respective meals.
The first two times I’ve had to sit and wait for food often I wonder was it fair that all these other people get passed up while I get my order before theirs? Is it worth their time to wait after me who gets his meals as quickly as possible? Don’t think so because sometimes being served before the next person that ordered first just isn’t fair to them no matter what size the order is, it’s too important over waiting a little while to be given an order.
