Do You Want Fries On Top Of That?

It's always easy to pick on Fast food establishments- the food, the employees, or the commercials- but it is a reality that very few of us avoid partaking, at least at sometime, the offerings put forth by these eateries.

A burger, fries and soda in minutes is pretty hard to pass up when in a hurry or when you just do not want to cook for whatever reason. The food is generally tasty and generally satisfying. I have no "beef" with that part of fast food. My problem comes at the drive-thru.

As many as have had fast food before, have also used the services of the drive-thru. I would guess, however, that the employees that work on the other side of the little glass window have not. I make this assumption by the way they pack the bags.

When packing a sack with our food, the Drive-thru "technicians" go through great pains to fit our lunch or dinner in the smallest bag possible. The burgers go on bottom, usually the bigger ones on top. By packing the larger burgers on top, they have a way of, well compressing the smaller burgers and conserving more space. Then comes the fries- laid on their side. The fries on top, laid on their side allows the fries to escape their box and fill in the gaps in and around the burgers. This also makes it possible to partially fold in the fries containers for even more space saving. It all eventually turns out to be some kind of cheeseburger casserole in a sack.

In addition to the barely recognizable burgers and fries, cooled due to the bag being too small to close, the drinks are another matter. "Do you want a drink holder with that?" is the question. I usually buy for me, my wife, and five children. Exactly what am I to do with seven drinks otherwise? They will then place the larger drinks on one side of the carrier and the smaller ones on the other. This causes a carrier that just cannot wait to go top heavy head over hells at the first stop on the way home.

And yes, there IS a difference between regular Coke and Diet Coke! And yes, it is a big deal!

Don't even get me started on wrong orders! Since the bag is so tight, it is impossible to check the order while in the drive thru. If you want to check, you must pull into a stall, unload the bag- careful not to rip it- and audit your purchase. Any problems must be addressed by actually entering the restaurant and waiting at the counter for someone to help you. All the while, the people standing in line are wondering why you are so special that you get to just walk up to the counter past them and they give you the "drop dead" glare.

Condiments, such as Bar-B-Que sauce or ketchup must be ordered twice. Once when ordering the food and another time, just before pulling away. This usually works fine, except for the times that the "technician" decides to calculate the odds of you actually returning to get the items after arriving home and realizing he lied and just didn't want to get them for you.

All in all drive-thrus are horrible. It is an example of what we have become. We know that they are bad and we know we are going to get screwed. We know it, we expect it, and we accept it. Yet we will all continue to use them. Why? Because they make our lives more simple.