#166 The Bell Tolls

I was at Taco Bell last night. I know, it’s shameful, but even I have a craving to snarf down a big bell value burrito every now and then. I went through the drive-thru, and it took a long time. I should have paid attention to the signs. My first clue that things may be about to go wrong was that the microphone-speaker-stand-thing, where you place your order, appeared to have been recently run over by an angry monster truck. Perhaps one of those raised-way-up bronco busters caught its jacked-up rear end as it was backing out in I’m-sick-of-waiting-20-minutes-for-a-99-cent-burrito frustration. It was an omen. Or as they say south of the border: It was an omen. Hey, they talk the same in Portland as they do here...
Anyhow, I placed my order and then inched forward. Time passed. I watched my fingernails growing, and age spots forming on the back of my hand. Finally, I rounded the bend and caught sight of the drive-thru checkout window for the first time. The person three cars ahead of me was paying. But he was handing the checkout teenager a bankcard. Time passed. The teenager handed the car client a pin pad on a springy cord thing. The customer entered his pin. The pin pad went back into the Taco Bell window. More time passed. A wooly bear on the tree next to my car pupated. The car customer leaned out of his window and yelled something into the checkout window. The taco-teenager extended him the pin pad again. Repeat enter the pin sequence. Repeat give the pin pad back to taco-teen. Time passes. Butterfly squirms out of pupa. Consider backing up. Cars behind trapping me in narrow curb-confined lane. Teen-a-la-taco extends hand with bag of food and what appears to be cash. Customer takes same and drives off. Sequence repeats with next two cars. Compose will. Hear taco-teen ask lady ahead of me, who is now at window with pin pad, “Would you like any cash back?”
Aha! That’s the problem. Fast food joints should not try to be gosh darn banks. Here’s the plan. You want to pay with a debit card, go the hell inside. Use an on-premises ATM and pay the dang cashier in cash. That’s right, the drive-thru cashier should be just that, a CASH-ier. Drive-thru people are in a hurry. That’s why they’re in a drive-thru. If you came to do your personal banking you should get off your derrieres and hoof it inside. Where they have two lines and where frustrated customers can turn around and get out, rather than be trapped in a one-way drive-thru—because someone decided they’d not only get a burrito, but get some cash back, buy a money market certificate, and apply for a freakin mortgage. This is a fast food drive-thru. Get that! The bank drive-thru is across the street!
America ya gotta love it.