My wonderful in-laws celebrated their 60th anniversary this past November. We had a great party with family, friends, food, and other "f" words, but not what you think. Frivolity, fun, and fantastic vibes.
That's what I'm talking about. 60 years is a heck of an achievement. Congratulations, I do love you both deeply.
So, my wonderful in-laws, Frank and Mary, received a slew of meal gift cards from the many guests. So, of course a Friday evening a few weeks back, they invited us to have dinner with them courtesy of the gift card extravaganza, this particular one from Red Lobster (For the Seafood Lover in You!).
I hate seafood.
Me and the youngest had cheeseburgers. But, I must say, for a seafood establishment it was a pretty damn good cheeseburger. Cameron would agree with me.
We enjoyed our dinner and conversation thoroughly and had reached the point of being ready to go home. Now Frani and her Dad are given to the occasional sweet tooth. Both of them were lamenting the fact that McDonalds no longer has the fried apple pies that were a pretty cool dessert choice back in the 1970's. I believe that it was some sort of litigious event involving the hot apple interior and people who don't read packaging safety instructions that led to McDonalds converting to a rather bland and much cooler turnover style apple pie in the modern day.
Either that, or the health kick that has also led to Baked Lay's Potato Chips.
But not Whataburger. Oh, no. They're still slingin' the real deal to this day.
So, as the dinner gods would have it, there is a Whataburger right next door to the Red Lobster (For the Seafood Lover in YOU!) that we were dining at.
We decided to go through the drive thru and that's where this story gets stupid.
Frank pulls up to the speaker and here is the exchange; scripted, and with permission of the federal government, unredacted.
Speaker: "Hi! Welcome to Whataburger, how can I help you?"
Frank: "Hey there! I'll take 3 apple pies, please."
Speaker: "3 apple pies? That'll be 5.49. The name please?"
Let me interject here. At this point all of us in the car were a bit surprised by him asking the name as this order was not placed using a mobile device or internet connection. A bit odd.
Frank: "Frank"
Speaker: "Ranker?" (My father-in-law's head cocked back in utter confusion at this)
Now, we're in trouble. Frani, Cameron, and myself have begun struggling to attempt to restrain laughter at this. Cameron reminds us of the time that we stopped at a hotel on a trip, and the concierge couldn't find the name that my wife got the reservation with. After 15 minutes of keyboard-clacking and conferring with management, she asked Frani:
"Are you Rrances Will?" This irritated me. I wanted to say something along the lines of "How many Frances and Rrances with the same last name do you expect would make a reservation for the same day and time?" But I didn't.
Ranker?
Frank: "No, it's Frank"
Speaker: "Okay, please pull around the drivers ahead of you, to the stop sign"
Now, I'm thinking this is no biggie. We just ordered 3 apple pies, and they probably need to be dropped into the deep frier. I was wrong.
Now as soon as my father-in-law pulls up to the stop sign, someone comes flying out of the door and down the steps of the side entrance of the Whataburger, and begins racing for the car. In an extremely surreal exchange, he hands over the bag, and asks for the money. Frani hands Frank $6.00, which he hands to the Whataburger employee, now panting like a dog in a 100 degree room. With that he said "thanks" and bee-lined back to the restaurant with not a single mention of change.
We were all caught off guard. Chortling laughter had begun with the word "ranker" and went on through the pull up to the stop sign and the track-star Whataburger apple pie messenger. It continued through his complete ignoring of the fact that the money handed him exceeded the price of the purchase, before he pulled a speed trial rocket run back to his place of employment.
Frank was baffled. Mary was laughing hard, and Frani and I were roaring in the back seat, as everything that happened in that 60 seconds was so stupid and bizarre (and a tad surreal) we could do little else.
Regardless of it all, 3 people had their apple pies, and all was right with the universe, even if it was tilted in a somewhat odd way.
Ranker?
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