doylebrau.com

July 10th is just a few minutes gone, and I don’t know about you, but I feel safer already. It wasn’t the day’s activities, oh good god no. Hanging out with fabulous ladies who love your hair is probably the best way to end your existence on this earth, which is where I was tonight, at Megan’s birthday festivus, complete with dancing seals and bicycle-riding bears.

Megan is second from the left in this lovely group shot. I swear, leaving Kaplan takes years off your appearance, she’s never looked more vivacious.

But enough about the ladies, why all the talk about the end of the world, Patrick? What’s so bad about July 10th?

Well, I’ll tell you… When I was a teenager, working at McDonald’s, there was a guy there named Rob. He was a quiet fella, about 35 or so, with a nice new red Jetta that featured a license plate that read: July 10. Of course, I was charged with getting to know him well enough to ask him the significance of the date and frankly, I was a little scared to. It could have been anything, a dead relative’s birth date, anniversary with an ex-wife, something else depressing, but I was completely unprepared for his actual answer.

Me: “So, Rob, what’s with July 10th?”

Him: “That’s the day the world’s going to end.”

And then he just went back to making more quarter-pounders…

I’m sure you know where this one’s going. I managed to fanangle the scheduling so that he and I would be closing together on July 10th, and also managed to take my time that evening, so that at 11:59 I had just finished up and was plopped on the counter waiting for the clock to strike twelve like it was Times friggin’ Square.

The clock did indeed strike midnight, signaling a brand new day for the rest of the world. I looked over at Rob, who had also been staring intently at the clock.

Seeing the clock strike 12, he checked his watch to make sure, then looked at me and shrugged his shoulders.

“Maybe next year.” he said, then he walked back into the kitchen to finish wiping down the grill.

I was having a conversation with a friend last night on the merits of reverse psychology. We were talking about child development and how there is actually a period of time in a child’s life (around 5 or 6 I think) when they are learning to rebel, but still don’t want to be a bad kid. So telling them something like “No, I don’t really think you can handle clearing your plate and putting it in the sink tonight, you look tired.” will actually get the job done in short order.

And as so many things seem to do, playing head games with children reminded me of high school, particularly of when I used to work at a fast food restaurant in my home town. I had a lot of extra time on my hands and, let’s face it, anyone who’s seen me in a typical work situation knows that I have a very difficult time going more than 5 minutes without trying to mess with someone’s mind. At this particular job, which I have posted about in the past and will probably post more on in the future, the tasks were so menial that I felt compelled to supplement my workday with elaborate schemes. Now, when I begin to tell stories like these to new friends, they usually stop me at this point with “Ew!! You didn’t spit in the food, did you?!”

I don’t think I really need to dignify that comment with a response, but just to clear the record once and for all, I never spat in the food, or did anything else so incredibly obvious. I had plenty of ways to deal with problem customers, befuddle random customers, and joke around with those “in the know.” Spitting in food is not, and never was, my style…

Anyway, back to the issue at hand, head games with children customers.

I found that one of the easiest ways to make people in the lobby question the preparation of their food was to loudly announce just how much attention I had paid to each item when I announced its presence in the food staging aread.

“Quarter-pounder, no onions, extra TLC!” I would proudly exclaim, the head of a middle-aged man snapping around to stare in horror at the offending burger.

“Nine-piece nugget! Counted ‘em twice, they’re all there!”

“Two cheeseburgers, made with love!”

“Big Mac, straight from the heart!”

Those who didn’t react right at the counter could be seen inspecting their food thoroughly after they sat down. I think I remember one guy even returning his “three heavenly hamburgers, made just for you [exaggerated wink]” back to the counter person and asking for replacements. Worrying the customers wasn’t really the best part, as anyone would probably suspect tampering if a fast-food employee said anything other than the usual when they made the food. No, the best part was constantly coming up with new things that my bosses had to politely ask me never to do ever again. I mean, when a shift manager comes up to you and says, “Patrick, can you please, uh, stop telling people how much you care about preparing their food? Please?” that is the true sign of a job well done.

Once, when I was a young buck working fast food, I was working the drive-thru window one afternon when a rather irate man pulled around to the window and demanded to know the total for his order. Now, to avoid confusion, you, the reader, should know that the place I worked at had one of the few face-to-face drive-thru set-ups still alive in the greater Capital District area. So you can imagine my surprise when I opened the door to greet the man and was immediatly accosted about my communication skills and lack of knowledge of the total of his order.

Irate Man: My number sevens, I had two number sevens.

Me: You did, sir? I can put those in for you now if you’d like.

Irate Man: I already gave my order, I got two number sevens, what’s my total?

Me: Sir, I didn’t take your order yet, can you tell me what you want to drink with those?

Irate Man: Well I guess you don’t know that your speaker’s broken then, cause I gave my order back around the corner!

Me: Sir, you couldn’t have given your order to our speaker.

Irate Man: And why not! (Aside: he was really pissed at this point)

Me: Because you were talking to a newspaper machine.

Irate Man: …

He drove off after that. And I treated myself to a small cup of neopolitan milkshake.