When Ernie and I travel with Michael on our yearly road trip, we stop at Fast food joints sometimes, usually getting the chicken Something, which is the healthiest choice we can make under the circumstances. I'm sure he's stopped at a lot of Carl's Jr.s on the road between art shows, too. So when he talks about the fast food spiel, he's speaking from long experience -- you can count on it.
Fried Spuzzles
Within certain realms in life there is an “edge” toward which one can be pushed over time. One doesn’t arrive there spontaneously or as the result of some single encounter but rather as the result of an aggregate of constant nudges. One night, with a carload of teens at a Jack In The Box in Sunnyslope, Arizona, I had reached that edge. A lot of food was going to be ordered through their miserable little speaker system and things - as they commonly do at the drive thru - we’re going to go distinctly south. Again. Nothing had yet occurred as I drove up to the order box but the very act of being there had managed to inflict that last tiny insult upon that small minded little alter ego inside my cranium and I was suddenly no longer in control of normal conversational skills. I realized somewhere within that I had no idea what I was going to say to the young lady inside the speaker box. I had reached the proverbial edge out of seemingly thin air.
To be fair, the order girl, no doubt wearing a headset of some sort, had not yet uttered a word at me and was no doubt near exhaustion late at night after a likely long shift. But someone was going to have to pay for earlier encounters that had occurred far too frequently at fast food joints. She just happened to be the someone.
I am not a vengeful person. I don’t get mad, and I don’t get even. I’m not some power crazed orange haired clown posing as a president. So, let’s just say that from time to time I put things “into balance.” I am “responsive” to past injustices. Fast food order takers have been guilty of a particular type of injustice over the years. The conversation goes something like this:
“Welcome to (you name it), would you like to try our special roasted something or other tonight?”
“No.”
“Then what can I get you?”
“I would like to order your grilled chicken sandwich. Not the meal, no drink. Just the sandwich and nothing else.”
“Would you like to upsize that, sir?”
“Upsize what?”
“The meal. You can supersize it for only an extra dollar twenty nine.”
Me: Silence.
“Sir………?”
“I’m here.”
“What size do you want your meal?”
“I told you I didn’t want the meal. Just the sandwich.
“Okay. What size drink?”
Me: Silence.
“Sir………..?”
“I told you I didn’t want a drink. Just the sandwich.”
Pause, I presume for thought. “Okay, that’ll be something, something, whatty what at the window.”
I don’t know how many times I’ve been put through this conversation. I never order the meal. Never. But I can say that the person at the other end of the order box more often than not takes me through the dog and pony show. Tonight, someone was going to pay.
The kids in the car were not given the opportunity to tell me what to order for them. They sat speechless as I launched into my spiel.
“I would like four orders of the fried spuzzles. You can supersize all four. Are they still on special?”
“Did you say puzzles, sir? We don’t sell those here although they used to come with the kid meal. But they were small. You talking about those?”
“No. I’m talking about the fried spuzzles you’ve had on special for the last month. They’re great. Are they still on sale?”
“Did you say spuzzles?”
“Yeah.”
“Can you spell that? I’ve never heard of it.”
“S…p…u…z…z…l…e…s.”
Silence toward me, but a few words with someone in the background.
Finally, “Sir, maybe you got those somewhere else. We don’t have anything by that name. What are they made out of?”
“How would I know? They just taste great. And don’t tell me you never heard of them. You’re advertising them on that billboard at 7th and Missouri.”
Not knowing where else to go with this she began reading me the menu:
“Hamburger, Cheeseburger, barbequed this, Sourdough that, to all of which I repeatedly said, “No.” she moved away from her station abruptly and her voice was replaced by that of an irritated man.
“Sir, if you want to order something real, do it. It’s been a long day, and this young lady doesn’t get paid enough for you to mess with her.”
“Fine. I’ll take my business elsewhere.” We left and went down the street to the Carl’s Jr, where the kids finally got to order real meals. They talked about the Jack In The Box caper for weeks afterward, though I can’t recall ever telling them why I’d done it.
Since my bypass surgery I rarely eat fast food and, to be honest, hadn’t been going to such restaurants very often anyway. I can’t call the incident cathartic in any meaningful way but, for my money, it did have the effect of righting some series of wrongs. I like to think I’m being heard. Perhaps fast food joints aren’t designed for that. How would I know? I just want some fried spuzzles. Supersized, please.
