The Greatest McDonald's In the World.

The BBQ Pit
1

And by the Greatest…I of course mean, the worst.

Imagine a brick red SUV filled with big city chicks headed down to Champaign Illinois for the first Bears Game of the season.

Gettin’ the hankerin for a McChicken combo (large please, with a diet coke), we decide to stop at the Kankakee McDonald’s off route 57 Southbound.

FRIENDS, how could we have known? It did not warn us. The signs were not dripping blood. The windows were not covered with the claw marks of patrons past. NO. Instead, brilliant red and yellow flags beckoned us closer, TRY A MCFLURRY! TRY A YOGURT AND FRUIT CUP! COME IN…

COME IN!

And then I swore I heard it, an echo on the wind, a voice not really there…maybe it was the drive through speaker…but I swear it said to me…

Abandon Hope All Ye Who Enter Here

We stepped inside. Three registers stood like the guards at Buckingham palace, silent, lacking operators. In fact, for almost thirty seconds, we did not SEE a McDonald’s Employee. Not a one. Actually, if I remember correctly, a tumbleweed rolled by. Two registers read: CLOSED. One read: OPEN.

A spunky young lady emerged from the back, eyebrows raised high in disbelief that we dared to enter the restaurant, nails long enough to write out the United States Constitution on, and stood silently, arms crossed behind a register that read CLOSED.

Confusing at best! A woman who had been waiting even longer than us said quietly…

“Which register is open?”

I’ll concede right here that the question was superfluous. OF COURSE she could have just stepped up and placed her order for three Mighty Meals, no pickles. But all of us were in a bit of shock at the frown and distaste on the employee’s face. And indeed there was no greeting, no ‘may I help you’, ‘may I help who’s next’, ‘order up’ or even ‘Can I interest you in a Big and Tasty combo today?’

And then…my friends, All Hell Broke Loose. For the girl behind the counter said;

“Which one am I standing behind?”

Then, as if watching a volley between Sampras and Agassi, my friends and I snapped our necks to the stunned customer who’d asked the initial question. She gathered herself back from the cliff of shock and said,

“I’m asking you which one is open.”

Another snap to the worker who now was leaning forward, her hands aggressively placed on the counter.

“I’m asking YOU which one I’m standing behind.”

By now, my jaw is slack. My friends eyes are wide as saucers. We think it cannot get worse. And then…it does. For the girl behind the counter says:

I am an actress. I am prone to drama. But I swear on a stack of Holy New International Version Bibles in front of my mother and the Lord Jesus Christ, that this is what the woman said.

"Fuck it. I’m not waiting on you. You’ve got an ATTITUDE."

All of us let out a short burst of disbelieving laughter as the girl exited from the register leaving us all alone YET AGAIN.

Ah, but here is the Supervisor. A smiling, older woman in the fashionable McDonald’s issue tie and slacks. She has come forth from the back to save us. The Long Nailed Servicegirl Extraordinaire says: “I ain’t waiting on that woman, she got an attitude.”

We all eagerly lean forward to watch the punishment, secretly hoping for a backhanded bitchslap full extension from the shoulder. Instead we see the supervisor…

BURST INTO LAUGHTER and walk away shaking her head.

Enter “Angel of Mercy”. A young boy, not yet eighteen, I’m sure, who takes up not only working the register (for the line which has now built to seven people), but doing prep work with the fry machine, running the drive through AND packing up to go orders, while the Supervisor eats a Fresh Baked Apple Pie, and the Long Nailed Harpy picks at her hair with her nails and proclaims loudly that she isn’t doing:

“no more work, until that bitch is gone.”

The Supervisor, seeing that Angel of Mercy is indeed overburdened, takes over Drive through, where the first customer orders “Ten Large Sprites.”

“Ten large sprites?” She calls out. “Are you shittin’ me?”

A startled pause wherein I considered running from the restaurant, ushering all of the cars in line away.

“Um…no. Ten large sprites please.”

“Are you serious with me?”

“Yes”

“Ten large sprites?”

“Yes. I have more to order as well.”

“Ten. Ten Sprites.”

“Yes, can you complete my order?”

“What you need ten Sprites for?”

I then fell into frothing convulsions of horror, laughter and sadness for the Angel of Mercy. Had I not been starving to death, I’d have left without getting my McChicken:
exactly eleven minutes after I ordered it.

McDonalds!

They love to see you smile.

2

Holy crap, jar. That’s the most bizarre, surreal fast food experience I’ve ever heard of. The poor Angel. You just know he’s only working that job because he’s only 16. And he so wants to make a good impression. He’s in for a sadly rude awakening, apparently.

My jaw was slack just reading that. I can only dimly imagine what it must have been like to have actually witnessed it.

Hell, write a letter (if you’re so inclined). It’s just vaguely possible that you might get the Supervisor and the Long Nailed Harpy fired.

[sub]“Ten large sprites? Are you shittin’ me?” From the supervisor? Apparently Kankakee has a little labor shortage.[/sub]

3

Holy shitzu. :eek:

And I thought waiting in line for ten minutes was long, at the Pearlridge McDonald’s. At least they were apologetic.

Don’t complain, though. Sparticus will think you are the scum of the earth for jeopardizing their jobs. :smiley:

4

See the lovely thing about most McDonald’s and other fast food places is that you can see the food prep. This means that if you start bitching out the sucky staff you can make sure they aren’t going to mess with your food.

On the other hand crafty servers can prepare messed up food before hand for trouble cases. The customer will, having watched them like a hawk, be confident that there food is fine. The craft server will be restraining laughter as they know the burger they just handed off is four weeks old.

Of course since it is McDonald’s the fact the food is four weeks old means pretty much nothing, and the chances of there being someone clever and spiteful enough working there are slim. They’d have moved onto a place where they can engage in their vindicative food tampering in secret.

5

I would have started laughing right at her so hard it wouldn’t be funny!

I mean, I would have thought, “geeze, lady, maybe the one that says, ‘open’”, but I wouldn’t have SAID that!

I mean, I feel for service workers, but what a fucking little bitch!

I would have said, “Pot, kettle black, baby.” And then left.

6

Great story, jar. There’s a fantastic short story in there.

7

If that happened to me, I think I’d rather have eaten my own belly button lint than eaten at that God forsaken fast food joint.

8

Dear sweet Jesus, Buddha and Maharishi Ayur Ved that’s a wonderful story.

Closest thing I’ve experienced is a Burger King in Mullet Garden, Florida. One afternoon, I encountered the all “special” crew. Except for the manager, every employee – those working the drive through window, the register, the kitchen crew, everybody – was retarded. Yes, I mean Mongoloid features and “will you marry me?” retarded.

While I appreciate Burger King’s employment of those who might not otherwise be able to find work, it took me 20 minutes to get a plain Chicken Whopper meal. There was nobody in line ahead of me, either.

9

I’ll admit that it’s a tiny bit weird that I like my quarter pounder totally plain, no cheese or anything else but most people can handle that. Still my oddest McDonald’s experience has to be when I was presented with a bun and nothing else. When I tried to explain that I did, in fact, want the hamburger, the woman tried to argue that I hadn’t said that…
-Lil

10

Well, she has a point here. I mean, there’s nothing wrong with Sprite, but what are the odds that you’re in a car with ten people, and every single one of them wants a Sprite? Not one Coke? Not one root beer? No one wanted diet? I’m sorry, but that is just freaky insane. Clearly, whoever was ordering was part of some lunatic soft-drink oriented cult, and was prepared to kill every one in that McDonalds for the slightest hint of carbonated impurity.

11

That’s ridiculous. I’m fairly certain its McDonald’s (and probably others) common nomenclature that a ‘plain’ sandwich is bun, meat. So I can order a Bic Mac by saying “I’ll have a Big Mac, make it plain” instead of "I’ll have a Big Mac without onions, lettuce, tomatoes, special sauce, etc)

That story was funny. The funniest story I think I have involving McDonald’s would be a road rage incident involving a driver almost hitting a jogger. They started yelling outside the McDonalds. I thought nothing of it as I walked inside. But for some reason, they carried their argument in the restaurant, and their yelling overpowered the din of a busy McDonalds on a saturday night. Finally, as the yelling match is growing to a head (and most people are hushed in alarm/fear) the jogger grabs a hamburger out of somebody’s hand and throws it at the driver’s face. Man, the look on the driver’s face was priceless. He pretty much underwent a hulk-like mental transformation and started fighting the jogger. The police prompty arrive to take them outside with the driver still having bits of hamburger on his face and screaming incoherently.

12

Call their corporate. In my experience, all of the major fast food chains take comments made on their complaint lines very seriously and will bend over backwards for you, handing out free sammich/free drink coupons like they’re going out of style. A delicious payoff will make the perfect ending to future retellings of this great story!

13

Juniper200, sweetie.

C’mere for a minute.

This is McDonald’s food you’re talking about, here.

I’m not sure if the word “delicious” belongs within the same forum as this thread.

14

He didn’t say they’d hand out coupons for McDonalds…

15

Touché.

16

That sounds exactly like the McDonalds near my house but friendlier. Actually it sounds exactly like what happened to me recently. I had gone to that one twice. The first time something startlingly similar to what you wrote happened. A few times it was just ok service. The last time I went through the drive through, the employee said, “can I help you?” I said, “ok, I’ll have a number three with a sprite.” Then he replied to me, “Nevermind, I am not going to help you because you sound white.” He then left the intercom.

I was the only one in the drive through (and no one else was inside) and I got up to the window asked to see the manager, the guy said, “I am the manager,” sure enough he had the little manager nametag, “and didn’t I tell you I am not helping you because you are white? Go home!” He said it pretty calmly.

I wrote a letter to the corporate office and was responded back to on the phone (I included my phone number), and they said that they couldn’t do anything since it was an individual franchise not owned by the larger corporation in the area.

I will never go back to that one. None of my friends will ever go to that one either.

17

Then you contact the franchisee. My friend’s father owns several BK’s up in Maine, and believe me, they will not brush something like this off.

18

Ahhh…minimum wage.

19

I think Mickey D’s food is delicious. It’s junk food, it’s bad for you, and it was always a treat as a child. So I love it.

But I see what you mean.

20

I’d contact corporate but I don’t know the exact address of the place. I just know it was right off Route 57 in Kankakee.

I still look back on it, lo these four days later and remember the unique combination of shock/hilarity. Not unlike the mingled flavors of fresh kettlecorn.

J