Huh, well there goes that theory. Sorry for doubting you! 
Daniel
At this point, I’d be staring every server straight in the eye and saying ‘Please help because I. can. not. eat. pickles. If I do, I will become very ill. So I will be very grateful if you can give me (food item) without any pickles.’ Don’t drop your gaze until you see some sort of sign of comprehension. If you ask it as though you’re asking a favour, there’s a chance people might actually comply.
…and am prone to spontaneously break out in uncontrollable projectile vomiting in all directions…
That’s possible but in my experience most servers don’t go out of their way to mess with customers.
What’s more likely in my experience - besides simply forgetting - is that not all restaurant owners are the sanest, most rational and reasonable people on the planet. If the owners says every water glass will have a lemon in it and this is one of his many quirks, then every glass of water will have a lemon in it. An employee caught trying to deliver a glass without a lemon wedge gets admonished and if that lazy slacker protests, “but the customer asked for no lemon…” that employee is now not only lazy but also an insubordinate liar. "You’re fired. Every customer needs lemon in their water.
Yeah I doubt there is really any malevolent intent when they put a lemon in and it does not happen every single time, I think most servers are on autopilot and all they really hear is water and lemon.
I don’t normally eat at fast food places, mostly because it’s kinda silly to expect vegetarian options at a BURGER joint… but occasionally I get a hankering for an Egg McMuffin. I have, in the last year, been to three McDonald’s in three states, Illinois, Wisconsin and Missouri, and ordered an “Egg McMuffin, no meat please.”
Experience #1 :
“No…meat?”
“Right, just egg and cheese.”
“There’s no meat on an Egg McMuffin.”
“Yes, there is, there is Canadian bacon.”
“Oh. That’s meat?”
Experience #2:
“Egg McMuffin, no meat. Please pull up to the window.”
“There’s meat on this”
“There is?”
“Yes, there’s Canadian bacon, I asked for no meat.”
“Oh. Here you go.”
(I drive away and open my Egg McMuffin. It contains an English muffin and a slice of Canadian bacon.)
Experience #3:
“There is no meat on an Egg McMuffin. Did you mean a sausage biscuit?”
Okay, I went to a McDonald’s tonight, and in all seriousness, I think the entire staff may have been drunk or stoned.
Two double hamburgers, no onions. One McChicken, plain. Two supersize fries. Not a la carte, I admit, but it should be noted that in ten years, I have never gotten a wrong order at this particular McD’s.
First, the people ahead of me got something they didn’t order. Then I saw the grill crew put cheese on two double burgers, and mayo and lettuce on a McChicken. (There was not much traffic, so I was fairly certain they were mine.) The sandwiches sat in the bag while my fries were cooking, so I inquired about them, and sure enough, the fully-dressed sandwiches were for me. “Sorry,” said the cashier. “I guess they didn’t look at the screen.”
Meanwhile, another customer got one hamburger Happy Meal and one nuggets HM when she’d asked for two nuggets. So she had to wait while they dropped more nuggets. Then I get my plain McChicken, thank Og, but my burgers are cheese with no toppings. Uh, no. Wait some more, then I get double hamburgers with everything except pickle. And there’s a manager in the grill the whole time. (Should have asked to speak to her, now that I think about it.) Finally I get my double hamburgers without onion, and another customer is waiting for his regular Coke to replace the diet that he did not ask for.
This went so far beyond “the average McD’s worker doesn’t give a shit” that I can’t help thinking that there must have been more to it. Getting the wrong order once? It happens. Twice? Maybe they have a new person. Three times? And from a store that’s always given top-notch service? And that is not swamped, as I already said? And it’s happening to everyone, not just me? Something’s not right.
I don’t know if my drunk/stoned theory is plausible, unless the manager was complicit, but I don’t know what else it could be. I noticed that the cashier’s shirt had worked its way out of his waistband, which could simply have been a matter of his being skinny, but perhaps he, and the rest of the staff, were very, very lacking in self-awareness. All I know is, that many wrong orders at one time does not just happen.
And for the record, each time, I stated my order clearly and concisely. “Two double burgers, no cheese, no onion.” I know the cashier communicated that to the grill staff after the first wrong order; I heard him. So after that, it’s on them. And if that order is difficult to understand and assemble, even after repeated attempts, they shouldn’t be working there.