Circular Cruises/Have It My Way
From Eccentric Flower
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Have It My Way 14 August 1997 For nearly four years I worked at a place less than three blocks from a shopping mall with a food court. This was written during that period. I tend to eat lunch in a hurry. I don't eat breakfast. The food court was a big temptation. I ate at the Burger King there several times a week. Since then, I no longer eat at Burger King that often, but recent spot checks have shown that it's still a problem. - - - I don't eat hamburgers. Certainly not fast-food ones. If I want beef, I'll eat meatloaf or a steak. That means if I go to a burger joint, the choice reduces to fish or chicken. Once upon a time, the McDonald's fish sandwich was the only edible thing on their non-breakfast menu, but since they redid their sandwiches, I won't even eat the fish anymore. It's horrible. I love Burger King's chicken sandwiches (both of them). I love their fish sandwiches too, but I don't order them anymore. The reason is that I always go to the same Burger King, and every time I'm there, They have two or three fish sandwiches sitting in the little chute, and as many as five chicken sandwiches waiting. - - - Do you know what a chicken sandwich looks like after ten minutes in that little chute? The mayonnaise is the consistency of library paste. The lettuce is gray-green and flat. The bottom bun, the one against the metal of the chute, has a texture like it's been starched and ironed. And that's the chicken sandwich - at least after ten minutes it's still edible. The fish sandwich after ten minutes would turn your stomach. Since I rarely get there when they don't have sandwiches stacked up, and I have no way of knowing how long the sandwiches have been there, and since I won't eat the burgers and won't risk the fish, I end up eating dead chicken sandwiches a lot more often than I'd like. - - - On the rare occasions when no sandwiches are stacked up, I notice it annoys the staff a little when I order one. Especially the earnest young managerial types. Not annoyed at me - it's more like, "Oh, hell, this customer's gotta wait for their sandwich, now they're gonna be pissed." I haven't quite worked up the nerve to tell them that I adore having to wait for my sandwich. Any more than I can come in during lunch and scream, "How long have those sandwiches been sitting there? Huh? I demand a fresh sandwich!" - - - The irony is that in the four years I've been hitting this Burger King the problem has gotten worse. More and more sandwiches in the chute. Now, the chicken and fish are comparatively low-traffic. This stale sandwich thing isn't a problem with burgers, because the burgers roll over so fast. And the only reason any good management would deliberately put extra chicken sandwiches in the chute is if they anticipated a regular demand - frequent lunchtime customers in the area, say. So I have to face the fact that I may have inadvertently made my own monster. Or at least contributed to the problem. Clearly the only solution is to quit cold turkey (Cold chicken?) for several months. Or perhaps write a nice letter to the Burger King people. But they'll just tell me to ask for a fresh sandwich. Copyright © August 1997. All rights reserved. |
