Tales from the Pit - Drive Thru Con #1

The following incident occurred several weeks prior and can be considered the spark which ignited the powder keg of growing chronicles you see now.

Working a drive-thru window during the evening hours tends to be rather slow and uneventful for the most part. Generally, we received a handful of orders via drive through after dinnertime and we would busy ourselves with our tasks to take care of. I was awake this particular night, thinking of ways to escape this dismal road which I had taken. I hoped that this would be temporary but as I watched the days stretch into weeks and the weeks began to turn into months, I had to brace myself for a long slog.

This particular incident would ultimately lead me to embrace the cynic within and increase my tolerance for bullshit and pain.

The drive-thru alerted me with it's annoying beeps. I had argued that we should have a headset but we didn't have the money to install one, which was understandable in this tough recession. I ran over to it and pressed the TALK button.

"Hi, how may I help?" I inquired to my faceless customer.

"Do y'all have any kids' meals?" The voice asked, mildly grating my nerves. The slight twang and the vernacular tongue made me attempt to determine what type of person I was talking to. I felt it was likely African-American, considering I had lived in the ghetto long enough to figure out how people would talk.

"No, sir. We don't have any kids' meals." I replied.

"All right. I'll take a chicken sandwich. That'll be all."

"Please pull up."

I rushed the order down to the kitchen. Generally, most modern restaurants use a modern cash register system to relay orders to the back. But we didn't happen to have thousands of dollars at our disposal so we opted instead to use a normal till and take orders on paper. While somewhat analog in the digital age, it had its uses in the simplicity of it all. I then returned to the window to get the money from my customer.

A black man pulled up in a white car, reeking of cigarette smoke. He had a bluetooth headset on and was talking to someone at the other end.

"That'll be $4.99, sir." I said to him, ringing up his total on the register.

"All right, honey. Hold on." He said to his companion at the other end. He reached into his wallet and pulled out a $20 bill, handing it to me. As he did, he then turned to me and started to speak.

"Why don't y'all have any kids' meals? I'm sure kids wouldn't mind eating here as well." He asked, in a concerned manner.

"Well, sir. Our main clientele are the people who work in this industrial area so we don't get many children out here often." I replied.

"Well, I think you may get lots of business with kids' meals, just so you know."

"I'll think about it." I turned back to the register to calculate his change and put the $20 next to me outside the till in both our sights.

"Hold on. I think my wife wants to go to Taco Bell instead." He suddenly interjected, bringing a halt to the counting of the bills I was currently engaged in. Naturally, I was mildly dismayed but if that was what the customer wanted, then that was his own nutritionally deficient choice.

"Very well then." I closed the register and handed the $20 back to him as he reached his hands out. He continued talking on his headset, ignoring me for the most part as he put the money into his wallet. Then he surreptitiously slipped a $1 bill out and handed it to me.

I had the bill in my hand, staring at it and very much confused. I had no idea why he had done such a thing and felt it was a mistake. My instincts told me that something was unnatural so I returned the bill to his palm.

"What's this?" He looked at me suddenly, inquiring in an accusatory tone.

"Sir, it's your bill. I gave you the $20 and then you gave me a $1 bill." I replied, mildly annoyed.

"I don't see any $20 here. What are you talking about?" He proceeded to open his door, looking around at his car in a big show of searching for the supposed missing bill.

I stared at him, my eyes narrowed in suspicion and a sudden burst of rage broke through my otherwise unassuming behavior.

"I GAVE YOU YOUR $20 BACK AND THEN YOU TRIED TO GIVE ME $1, SIR! WHAT ARE YOU TRYING TO DO HERE?!" I bellowed at him, with my hat askew and arms flailing wildly. I seethed with rage as I saw my breaths exhale quickly in the pale, cold January night.

He paused to look at me, taken aback by my outburst. To my satisfaction, I saw the glimmers of fear in those foul eyes of his.

"Hey, it's cool. You don't need to shout, mister. It's okay, you don't need to yell." He said softly, as he looked furtively around, scanning the area for any passerbys within earshot of us.

He closed his car door and stepped on the pedal, escaping to the street in front of the restaurant, like a mouse fleeing the claws of its feline predator. He didn't even pause to turn left for the Taco Bell near us but simply disappeared into the darkness from which he came.

And thus, these tales were born.