#currently working

Eventually, he understands the meal! It’s a miracle! So we move onto this: “I don’t want the drink.”

“Alrighty, so that won’t be a meal then-”

“But I want the meal.”

I had to spend five minutes explaining to him that yes, the drink was part of the meal, and no, you couldn’t get a meal deal without one. He says very clearly that he doesn’t want a drink. I keep that in mind.

And then we moved onto stage three; “How much would it cost to get a chicken teriyaki sandwich?”

My customer service smile begins to fade. All my coworkers are off doing other things, and a line has started to build up behind Guy. I look over at my manager; we’re behind on prep because of surprise revenge from yesterday’s secretly-shitty Entitled White Lady and a new trainee. My other coworker is working drive thru. I realize that I’m alone.

I turn back to the board. The price is right beside the sandwich. I tell him it anyway.

“How much does that cost with the soup?“

I contemplate tapping out and getting my manager to take over. I’ve been shit at math since my 9th grade math teacher Mr. Payne refused to help me because my ‘notes weren’t good enough.’ Either way, I attempt to do the mental math.

To the surprise of no one- except for Guy, who seems offended by my efforts to at least try and give him an estimate instead of just telepathically knowing these prices- my mental math is not perfect. Wow. What a plot twist.

“It should be just under ten dollars!” I say, still trying.

He gives me a look like I have personally come into his house and smashed every one of his plates. “What about the meatball?“

“That’d be just over 7.50!“ I say, motioning with one hand to the board. As he can plainly see, the meatball costs a dollar less than the chicken teriyaki. He knows this. The prices are right beside the sandwiches. I saw him look up there right after he gave me the Smashed Plates look. 

He looks like I’ve offered to glue his plates back together: resigned, a bit frustrated, but not sure of any better options. Coincidentally, that’s almost exactly how I feel.

So I make his sandwich. I get him his soup. I get to the till, and he grabs a white milk. I ring everything in; congrats, Guy, you’re getting your meal after all!

I tell him the price: 9.75. He stares at me. I contemplate hitching a ride five hours to Vancouver so I can scream over the ocean.

“That’s not right.”

I scream internally and say, in my best customer service voice, “A small soup, a 6-inch meatball, and a white milk?”

“Yes!”

“Well, that’s everything, sir!”

“You did the math wrong!”

Buddy, I’m not a calculator. You were making me do mental math in the middle of a rush. I was scared of getting yelled at because I spent like seven minutes dealing with you when we’re supposed to make sandwiches in two minutes or less.

And then my coworker Garret, also known as my Knight in Shining Experience, steps away from the drive thru. “Is there an issue?” He asks, and I step away from the till.

Guy does his whole bit about how I said he wouldn’t be paying this much, as I contemplate death. Or, at least saying, “You said you didn’t want a drink. And if you doubted my math, you could have done it yourself. You literally haven’t put your phone down, don’t pretend you couldn’t pull up a calculator.”

Garret rings him through again. “A small soup, a 6-inch meatball, and a white milk?”

“Yes.“

“Looks like that was right! The milk does make it a bit pricier, unfortunately-“

“But I got the meal deal. I got the three dollars off?”

“Of course!” I say. The till does it automatically. There’s no way to stop it from grouping them together like that.

His Smashed Plates look is back. Garret hands him his receipt, and I head back around to help the next customer. It’s a hitchhiker. I wonder if he’s going to Vancouver.