Today for lunch I ended up at my beloved Taco Bell. I make no apologies for my poor taste in food.
So I get in line and the place is packed. One person on the register, 20 people either waiting for food or waiting to order food. Ahead of me in line are 3 rather physically large men. More horizontally gifted than vertically gifted. Something about them screamed "obstacle" to me. I don't know if it was the shit kicker cowboy boots, the redneck baseball caps or the way they tended to wander and shift all over the place.
They get to the front of the line and they literally block the entire front counter. The first two order fairly quickly and I feel bad about assuming they'll be the ones that hold up the line. The last one shifts and postures a couple more times and then starts to order. He speaks so loudly that he might as well have yelled. He's not so old that you would suspect he has a hearing issue. In fact, 10 seconds before he was using his "inside voice".
It took me a couple of seconds to realize that he was speaking loudly because he thought that the cashier didn't understand english very well. He emphatically demanded that his burritos have no sour cream and then that they also have extra meat. He repeated this about 3 times for her "benefit". He even used hand gestures (picture the empire safe signal) to help the dear out. To her credit, the cashier smiled and tolerated this fool.
Then, the 2nd and 3rd of the trio discussed how expensive lunch was. A whole $26 and change to feed 3 very big eaters. They shuffled through their pockets, wallets and places I didn't want to see men touching themselves in public as they scrounged up the money. At one point I had to bite my tongue so that I didn't step up and pay for their meal so that they'd hurry the hell up. Then, as I stepped up to order they lingered in front of the cashier, shooting me dirty looks for crowding them.
I finished my order and turned to walk to the pick-up side of the counter to wait for my food and lo and behold big boy #3 had parked himself at the counter. Normally it wouldn't be a problem, but he was bent over, elbows resting on the counter, ass nearly resting on the maze bar that routes the customers into the cashier. I was madly trying to calculate the remaining space and the size of my hips to see if I could "squeeze by" without colliding. Traffic was backing up behind me as other people finished ordering.
I braved it. I sucked in my gut and turned sideways stepped past him. Thankfully my calculations were correct and no contact was made. I mumbled excuse me as I went past.
So I'm standing there, this guy is blocking all the other unfortunate people who want to get past him. He's staring down the unfortunate food preparer to make sure "none of that sour cream gets into my food, or let me tell you!". A few people managed to excuse themselves past him, but he returned to his look out post, blocking the remaining people up against the counter. You'd think that he'd get the message after three people asked him to move.
It occurred to him that he didn't know what number his order was, but #2 handed him over the receipt. It seems that #1 didn't want to be associated with him, so he went and sat down. Have you ever thought that staring at restaurant workers would make them work faster? Me either.
My order (to go) came up before theirs was finished. (I'm sure they were confused by the NO sour cream and EXTRA meat) I ducked in to grab my bag as he glared at me. The absurdity of the situation overcame me and I giggled as I left with my food.
Some days you just have to be glad you're not part of that trio.
