Shopping for groceries is depressing. I guess I don’t know if it’s really depressing, or if it’s just expensive? At the same time, though, grocery shopping for me is fun. Lacy loves to go, so she’s really not a problem at all, and usually the carts full enough where Mindy won’t notice Chips Ahoy being snuck in there, or one of those massive-size dark chocolate bars. And I don’t mess around there, I can’t get chocolate dark enough. Maybe that’s why taking up coffee has been so easy and with no cream/sugar? But I start with this, because instead of enduring the grocery store this particular evening, we ate out.

McDonalds has the drive-thru market cornered. I’ve said this before in multiple posts on here. I almost want to say they have the entire “when you don’t eat at home” market cornered, but due to that one straw incident a while back they don’t get that prize this time. McDonalds referenced carries thru the story here …

So we can’t decide what we want, I mean it’s late, Veterans has the usual crowd of cars going who-knows-where because no one ever turns off of it when you need them to. So we decide on Bob Evans. Awesome, I’m a huge fan.

Walk in there, parking lot still has enough cars to prove they’re still open but not too many where you’re worried you’ll be stuck at the infamous bar stools. Anyways, girl behind the counter sits the folks in front of us, then comes back and sits us … no worries. We sit, look over their menu that seems to be the never-ending list of goodness. I’m telling you, I’m all about consistency and ordering the same thing per-restaurant but I’m ready this night to open the menu to a new page.

We sit for about 10 minutes.

Then we mention it’s odd, no one’s even got our drinks and such. Then we continue to wait another 5 minutes or so, and we notice the waitress is like walking back & forth like she’s lost us. It’s like I expect this sort of thing at the Pub II, because they know you’re gonna wait 45 minutes if you have to, because you’ve got your stomach set on cheese-balls so they’ll serve you when they feel like it … but I don’t expect this at Bobby Evans!

Finally, and honestly as awkwardly as possible, we just get up and, well, leave. Even out the side-door, like in no hurry. No one questions us, all we got was the girl who just sat us like 15 min. ago saying to have a good night. Now seriously, I mean even if you order coffee alone you ain’t getting out of there that quick, and/or sneaking out the side-door with a baby and not paying … wtf.

This is so hard for me to leave to, because I am a strong avoider of Denny’s for all things breakfast. I may have to change, I guess they can’t smoke inside Denny’s anymore, right? I’m telling you that place served everything with a side of ash. Disgusting.

Now I may have to try Denny’s out, because Bob Evans fell through the cracks, and I need to avoid them for a while to “show them” my anger. They’ll miss my credit card, suckers.

So we leave, and it’s very strange. First time I’ve really had to do that due to … not, being, served. I’m still confused how it even happened as I write this. I know some of you are sitting there thinking, we should’ve said something and gotten their attention.

Yea, not so much. I would do that, if I was on the other end of the payment process. Maybe that is rude, I don’t know, and right now they’re on the crapper list so it really doesn’t matter.

So anyways, out of their parking lot heading to the next stop. We think KFC, ya know let’s resort to fast food because I mean really, now we’ve lost all hope for the evening at a sit-down place. KFC is so iffy though, sometimes, I mean it’s like have you been there at lunch for the buffett? I guess I don’t understand how “people wanting chicken” … at “KFC” … on a “buffett” is that confusing. But they constantly manage to screw this up worse than Pizza Hut buffett. I think I could go to Pizza Hut buffett every day for a month and see the same thing at lunch.

Mexican pizzas or something, maybe meat lovers. They get to distribute (1) sausage or cheese per-month, so you gotta catch that window.

So skip KFC for the evening. Decide, oh yea let’s try Hardee’s because THAT sounds like a good idea. Drive into the Hardee’s. You know the one, over on Veterans across from the infamous Denny’s and old State Farm. Let’s just ask the question right now.

How is this place still open?

Before we pull in, already 1 car is waiting out front for their food. You know they got the “pull ahead” trick. And we no longer get in the lot and now there’s 2 cars waiting in the “pull ahead” because we’re slow zone. Well, frankly that was enough for us that night. We pull in, scour the menu, pull out.

By that time, there’s a third car now in the “pull ahead” zone. Amazing.

Close this restaurant.

All in all we just go home and eat there. I know, I know that’s not a good end to this ever long story. But it’s what happened. But it got me thinking even more about McDonalds… They are, in all honesty, a-maze-ing.

They offer consistency, some of the cheapest prices in town, and they can serve it up faster than any other drive-thru in town. At least in my experience. They’re faster than Jimmy John’s! And speaking of that, what is the deal there? They aren’t freakin’ fast, if anything they’ve got a freakin’ drive-thru problem. Have you driven thru that one on Veterans by the old State Farm? I’m telling you what, my little car almost gets stuck in that hole in front of their window. And I go to the Jimmy’s on campus too, next to the empty lot where Burger King couldn’t cut it … That Jimmy’s is obsessed with keeping your receipt like Noodles. “Do you want your receipt?”

Uh … I guess not, if anything can it be put in my tab? Is this some attempt at going green for these places? They always print themselves a copy … I dunno.

But so yea, McDonalds I mean the whole drink system we’ve all seen is just un-real. Is there some sort of patent here that they have, where every other fast food joint has to rely on their workers to fill the cups manually? My guess is they just don’t sell the quantity world-wide like the Golden Arch does. I read “The Wal-Mart Effect” and now I need to find a book similar to that about McDonalds, it would be interesting. Sickening, I’m sure, but interesting.

This thesis is over for tonight.

This entry was posted on Sunday, October 12th, 2008 at 9:38 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.