Lost Marbles And Loose Screws

Subject #1: The Baby

No, I'm not referring to an actual baby. This woman was in her 30s. She ordered several items via our drive-thru, including a Nacho Supreme with no tomatoes. I was taking orders; my freak of an ex-boyfriend (I will discuss him later) was taking her cash. As he hands her her order, she takes a look at the Nacho Supreme and immediately starts bawling her eyes out. Note that she wasn't teary-eyed in the least when she first pulled up to the window.

"You put tomatoes on my Nacho Supreme!" She wails and wails and wails, and cries her eyes out, and wails some more. My ex-boyfriend starts to feel very, very awkward. He offers to have them remake the Nacho Supreme for her, but even after she gets the new Nacho Supreme, she keeps wailing until her car is at risk of flooding. "You don't understand! You ALWAYS put tomatoes on my Nacho Supreme when I tell you not to! Always, always, always! Why, why, why!?"

Finally, the awkward ex-boyfriend fetches our manager. The manager attempts to calm the crazy woman down, and even takes the Nacho Supreme off so she gets it for free, tomato-less and all. Does that even slightly ease the crying? Of course not. This crazy blubbering bitch keeps on crying hysterically, even as she's driving away.

I can't tell you what would compel a full grown adult woman to cry like that in a fast food drive-thru of all places. I can tell you, however, that I don't care if somebody just shot her whole family in front of her; when you're ordering fast food, you need to pull yourself together for the two minutes you're there. For fuck's sake, the nachos are worth less than $2 and we fixed the damn order for her right away. I have never seen anyone cry so hard over a $1.60 item before. I feel sorry for her children and/or husband, if she even managed to get any of those.

Subject #2: Garbage Guy

Our lobby used to be open until 1am on Friday and Saturday nights. Usually we didn't get anyone too creepy that late at night; just annoying teenagers who would hang out in the parking lot. Not the movies, not at parties... a parking lot.

One night, a very strange, very smelly man came into the store around midnight. He was wearing jeans and a blue winter jacket; he had a combover and glasses. He was holding a garbage bag in his hands.

Instead of ordering, he decides that I give a shit about a weird story... Something about how he lost his watch, and went through the garbage bag looking for it. After he finally finished telling me his stupid (and repulsive) story, he finally got to the point. He asked me if he could throw the garbage bag away in one of our garbages. I'm sorry, but since when did you have to ask an employee of a fast food joint if you can throw your garbage away in their garbage? He could have just done it and I probably wouldn't have even seen him.

For the rest of the night, he just kind of hangs out in the lobby, making conversation with the dirtbag teenagers. Apparently this guy wants to go to a town about four hours from here, so he asks them if they'll give him a ride. They're obviously joking back and making fun of him, so naturally, they tell him "What a coinsidence, we were just going to head up there!" After about ten minutes, he finally realizes that they're picking on him. Frustrated, he calls them jerks and then storms out. The teenagers continue to laugh... loudly.

So here's what I'm saying: A very strange-looking man walked in with a garbage bag, told me a story about how he lost his watch and was looking for it in there, then decided to just hang out with the teenagers and ask them for a ride to a town that's roughly four hours away. What. The. Fuck.

Subject #3: Demanding Man

We used to get a regular who was very obviously Christian-Conservative. He was very funny-looking; sort of like Garbage Guy. He was scrawny with glasses and a combover hairstyle. He had a gay son who went to my high school, and after realizing who his parents were (sometimes the wife would come in as well), I could see how the kid ended up being gay. Anyway, the dad was always very nice and friendly, but in sort of a creepy way; like he was being extremely fake on purpose to psych us out or something.

One day, we were extremely busy and understaffed because we hadn't been expecting such a rush, and THREE people had called in sick. Naturally, we were behind on all of our orders. The drive-thru was obviously our first priority because we have a timer that we need to keep as low as possible (in case you're ever wondered why the people at fast food places seem to be rushing you at the drive-thru). A few people had ordered inside, and their orders were taking 30 minutes or longer. And yes, we were warning people about the wait.

I was forced to go on a ten minute break, even though I didn't want to because of how understaffed we were. As I was walking to go sit in the lobby, the man approached me, looking extremely angry. "I have been waiting for my food for over half an hour! You know, this really defies the meaning of fast food!" Obviously, he thought he was being clever... I had to explain to him that we were taking care of the drive-thru orders first because of the timer. He cut me off and shouted, "And to top it off, it's a real mess back there!" (referring to the back of our store, which was of course messy).

I don't know what this guy wanted. Did he want us to make food for our customers, or did he want us to drop everything that we were doing and clean up? Jesus fucking Christ, people baffle the hell out of me. I shouldn't have had to deal with something that idiotic while I was on a break. Needless to say, I'm happy that I eventually quit.

Subject #4: Shaky Old Man

There was an old man who would come inside to order. He was so old, I often feared that he would have a heart attack or something in our store. He had VERY shaky hands that he couldn't seem to control. Taking change from him was awkward.

One day, he actually came through the drive-thru, and my boss was taking cash from him. After the order was finally out, she turned to me and looked like she had seen a ghost; she was extremely pale. Apparently she was spooked by the fact that a guy like that was driving. I can't blame her.

This is why there should be some sort of age limit to driving.

Subject #5: Princess

We had another old regular who came in quite often. He liked to call me Princess from the first day I took one of his orders. I believe I ended up working the lobby for nine months before they moved me to drive-thru, so I saw him a lot. He would always call me Princess instead of Mallory. My coworkers thought it was creepy, but I knew that he was just old and nice.

When I was moved to drive-thru, he was really upset about it. He would ask, "Where's Princess?" He would always make me come over and say hi, but after a while, my coworkers would let him know that I was too busy to just walk over and talk to him. So as an excuse, he would always have me grab him one of the trays we use to hold the soda cups (they were located at the drive-thru).

I know he was probably just old and silly, but why did he simply insist on seeing me all the time, no matter what?

Subject #6: Confused Bragger

One day, I had a very strange and loud customer in the drive-thru that I was taking cash for. He never spoke a word directly to me, because he was on an old-looking cell phone. As I was taking his cash, he spoke in a booming voice, "I'M ON THE PHONE WITH MY HOT WIFE!" I didn't know what to say to that, so I just gave him his change. As I started to give him his food, he shouted, "I HAVE TO GET HOME TO MY HOT WIFE!" He was also talking to his "hot wife" over the phone, and calling her things like "Baby" and "Sexy".

I could understand the need to brag about having a hot wife to a male Taco Bell employee, but I'm clearly a girl. I have no manly features. It almost seems like maybe the guy was being dared to say and do such an immature thing. To this day, I'm still confused about it.

There are more screwy stories to tell, but these are the only ones that I can remember off the top of my head.