Iced Coffee

                                                 Iced Coffee

The last 5 miles to Mobile Regional Airport along Airport Boulevard on the way to take AnHà to meet her flight took more than an hour. There are a score of traffic lights and each has a very, very long red. Traffic was dense but not jammed and it was over a hundred degrees Fahrenheit.  I don't have air conditioning in my old car.  Coming back out of the airport I saw a sign for I-10 pointing along a little two-lane going south and decided to chance it. It was much easier than the main drag going in and I was very hot and thirsty so I watched for a place to get something cold to drink. Seeing a McDonald's I drove in to the parking lot, parked, and went inside to the counter. What I wanted was iced coffee. I just wanted a big cup of ice filled up with coffee and asked the clerk at the cash register if she could do that.

"Certainly!" she said, "we have iced coffee! Medium or large?"

I looked at the menu on the wall and saw that they, indeed, purveyed iced coffee and resisted the urge to ask for "small." I paid the $2.67 price for a "large" with my credit card. The clerk took a big cup from the shelf and handed it to another girl who filled it with ice and reached for the coffee pot, hesitated, then turned to me and asked, 

"What flavor creamer would you like?"

"No creamer, thanks," I replied.

"But what flavor do you want?"

"None, please, just pour the coffee on the ice."

"What flavor?"

I was getting a bit perturbed but spoke evenly and slowly, "just coffee, no creamer, no other flavor, just coffee."

The lass looked perplexed and turned back to the cashier with a puzzled expression on her face. "I don't understand, we don't have that!"

The cashier took the cup from her and turned back to me, "I'll do this, what flavor, sir?"

"Please, ma'am, just coffee and ice. I really don't want the creamer."

The older woman who tended the drive-through came in to check on an order whereupon the cashier  handed the cup to her and said, "Here! you deal with him, I don't know how to do this!"

At this point a big beefy customer with thick arms and a big mustache interrupted and angrily told me to stop harassing the girls and quit trying to order something they don't have. I ignored him at first as the elderly clerk said to the cashier, "You'll get used to it." She took the cup, looked at me and said, "What flavor, sir?"

We went through the whole sequence again with no hint of comprehension on the part of the old lady.  I asked for the manager. The second girl went to the back and a middle aged woman came out to the counter and asked, "What seems to be the problem?"

I repeated my request thinking that here was someone with experience who could handle the transaction.

She said to me, "What flavor?"

The big guy punched my shoulder and said angrily, "You leave these girls alone and get the (incivility here) out of here!"

At this point the young man who was assembling hamburgers and snickering a little bit put down the Red Slime Classic he was working on and came forward, took the cup from the manager, picked up the coffee pot and poured coffee into the ice and set  it on the counter. I said thanks and reached for the cup.

The cashier grabbed it first and said, "I don't know how to charge for this. It isn't on the screen."

The thug behind me was getting very upset and his face was actually red. I said, "It is already paid for. The machine will never know that it doesn't have creamer in it. Either give me the coffee or give me my money back! "The manager said they couldn't refund it because I used a VISA card and not cash. The hamburger guy took the cup away from the cashier and handed it directly to me. I accepted it and hastily went out the door. I had meant to sit in the air conditioning and drink the coffee in a leisurely manner to cool off before going into the Sahara outside but I was afraid the mustache guy was going to hit me or have a stroke, so I left. Red-Faced-man followed but didn't try to detain me further and I drove away sucking on my hard won iced coffee.

I am still in wonder at the experience- four employees and one customer all together in one McDonald's all of them  too stupid to work in a McDonald's.

I hope the hamburger guy didn't get fired for insolence.

 August 2007