Called a Chinese restaurant near my office after work to order food to pickup on my way home. The experience turned out to be extremely odd.
“Hello. I’d like to place an order for pickup.”
“Ok, what would you like?”
“I want the sauteed string beans.”
“You want the sauteed string beans with shrimp?”
“No. I want the sauteed string beans.”
“You want the sauteed string beans with rice?”
“No. I want the sauteed string beans. I’m just trying to order vegetables right now.”
“So, you want an entree of string beans? That’s $16.”
“Yes. That’s fine.”
“So, you want soft string beans with no garlic?”
“What? No. I want sauteed string beans. You know what? Never mind. I’ll order when I get there.”
After hanging up, I realized that I no longer had any desire to ever revisit the restaurant again. The string beans would have been part of a $70 order, but I wound up going somewhere else.
Things didn’t go smoothly on that call either, though.
“…”. Call answered but silence on the line.
“Uh, hello?”
“Yes. Hello.”
“… I’d like to place a pickup order.”
“Ok, sure. What’s your number?”
[phone number that I’ve had for 13 years provided]
“Ok. Is this Tracy?”
“Uh, no.”
“Mary? Are you Mary?”
“No. My name is Bradley. Can I place an order?”
“Sure. What would you like?”
The order proceeded normally from there.
On the way home, I had one person pull in front of me and come to a dead stop. I had two others pull in front of me and slow down to 7-10 MPH in a 25 MPH zone. Absolutely bizarre dinner ordering and evening commute experience.
Bradley's Old Fashioned Weblog 