"Your Way" My ASS

I had the worst fast food experience of my life last night. Due to the enormity of my mommy guilt at having ignored the children for the past 2 weeks, I decided to take them to the Burger King that's down the street from my house. They have this play area with an enormous train and these caboose-looking tables, and they really like going there, so off we went. My first hint of trouble came when I ended up having to park a solid 20 spots away from the front door...looking inside, it looked empty, so I was rather confused...but whatever. The kids had already seen the bright lights of flame broiled goodness, so there was no turning back.

We walked in to find an absolute ruckus at the front counter. There had to be 8 teenaged boys standing there, ordering food, shooting the breeze with those on duty...it became clear that they worked there, and it was their night off. Free whoppers, bitches! Guess that's why I couldn't get a parking space. I got up to the cashier and started ordering, when she suddenly stopped and turned to the crowd at the other end of the counter.

"GUYS. I CAN'T HEAR THE CUSTOMER. SHUT THE HELL UP."

The ruckus continued...

"HELLOOOOOO!!! KNOCK IT OFF. FUCK!"

My jaw dropped. She didn't bat an eye, kept right on tapping away like it never happened. I smiled and continued ordering. I earmuffed Youngest Child in case of another cashier outburst.

As if on cue, Youngest Child started whining for chocolate milk, which I promised him was forthcoming. The cashier handed us white milks and announced that chocolate was all gone, and the poor kid promptly delved into an emotional breakdown. I handed him a tissue to blow his nose while I filled up Oldest Child's cup with Hawaiian Punch. By this time, our tray was ready, and I noticed that my onion rings were actually french fries. I brought this to my friendly cashier's attention who, without a word, turned to grab an order of onion rings and literally dropped them on my tray.

"Uh, could I have some sauce please?"

This request was met by a sharp intake of breath and a roll of the eyes. She had to go out back, and was not pleased at the prospect. She took her sweet time as I continued to comfort Youngest Child, who was still wracked with sobs and mourning his lost chocolate milk. Again, sauce was dropped from a height of 2 feet from the counter.

We walked into the kiddie area, and Youngest Child, who had calmed a bit, started wailing again. The big train was GONE, leaving the caboose tables looking mighty dejected and lonely, but we were at a point of no return so we sat down and tried to make the best of it. As we settled in, we noticed that our ears were being assailed by Christmas music (it IS almost March, right?) being blared from the overhead speakers, literally twice as loud as it was in the normal seating area. The TV with cartoons was drowned out by some chick wailing about trees being cut down for the holidays. I was going to just deal with it until I noticed that I ended up with 2 hamburger kids meals and 1 chicken tender meal instead of the other way around. Middle Child opened his bag and started bawling when he saw this renegade burger, so I grabbed his bag and took him to the counter for his tenders.

The cashier, again, was not thrilled to see me. She turned, grabbed a box of tenders, and dropped them on the counter. Her manager was even standing there. "Maybe you could apologize for the mix up, Adrienne?" She walked out back without a word. While I was there, I asked the guy if he could turn down the Christmas music just a tad. He promised he'd get right on it.

As we were finishing up, this 16 year old kid wandered into the room. "Did you want the music turned down?" Uh, sure, but we're almost done at this point, so whatever. He walked back to the counter and started messing with knobs. The music got louder, and the air conditioning kicked on full blast, blowing directly onto our table. Youngest Child started crying...again. Middle Child put his coat on and shivered. I saw the kid walk away from the knobs, satisfied that he'd done his duty, so I knew we were screwed. We stuffed what was left of the kids' meals into the bags and ran out of there.

As we walked out, the BK off-duty hooligans all sped away in their respective vehicles, leaving 8 empty spots right up front. I gritted my teeth and kept walking to my own car, which was about 5 miles away. Youngest Child decided to jump into a snowbank and soaked himself right up to his butt. I have pretty much vowed never to go to Burker King ever again. That place sucks donkey balls.