When I buy a sandwich at the cafeteria at work, I almost always order the same exact thing - chicken salad on a wheat wrap with lettuce. I do this once or twice a week.
Let’s go back to last year. Mary was the sandwich maker. I would order my sandwich and she would make it. I always said the full order even though I knew that she had caught on that it was always the same.
One day I decided to get something different. As I walked up to the counter, Mary grabbed a wheat wrap and got ready to make my chicken salad sandwich. I told her that I was having an Italian sub instead. She laughed, put away the wrap, and made the Italian sub. This was the first time Mary had ever taken out the wrap before I asked for it.
Mary left a few months ago and we got a new sandwich maker, Jorge. As with Mary, I would state my full order every time I asked for my sandwich. Finally, yesterday, I decided that I wanted an Italian sub. When I got up to the counter Jorge asked, for the first time ever, “The usual?”
I can accept that this is just a coincidence, but I eagerly await Jorge’s departure so that I can see what happens with the next sandwich maker. If it happens again, I’m going to really wonder whether I am somehow catching cues from them and changing my order just to screw with them.
Since you were ordering something different on those days, I would guess your body language was different somehow. Perhaps because you were thinking about your choice it made you more pensive as you walked up to the counter. The worker may have taken the opportunity to fill the silence by trying to start in on your normal order.
When you order your usual, maybe you walk straight up to the counter without hesitation. Since these times were different, the workers may have been responding to that.
There is a Chinese food place near here that I have been going to for twenty years. In that last few years, the daughter of the owners has been working the front desk. I end up there once a week or so to pick up take out for my family and for the last few years it’s been the exact same four dishes with the exact same number of eggrolls. The girl (She has a name and I know it but I can’t spell it.) at the restaurant has had my order memorized since about the third time I ordered it. Without fail, when I walk in I just wave and have a seat while she scribbles down my order and turns it in to the kitchen. Last week I when I went to go pick up chinese the girl wasn’t at the desk and one of the other staff was there taking orders. He asked my what I wanted and I just stared at him. I had no idea what to say. I had to grab a menu to cypher out my order.
The story doesn’t end there.
There is a little cafe around here where I pickup breakfast nearly every weekend. Sometimes twice. The lady that runs that place also has my order memorized. So last weekend she asks me, “What are you going to do if I’m not here one day?” I said, “Funny you should ask!” and told her the story of the chinese food place. She nearly died laughing. She wrote out my order and now has it posted permanently near the register so I can just point to it in case she is ever not there.