Second Captured Story of the Road Trip: "Nacho Fries"

Yesterday went by way too fast.  We barely had time to talk to people, but I wanted to write about our Nacho Fry excursion at Taco Bell in St. Louis, Missouri.  We made a total of two pit stops, and Aaron was rushing me; however, I made him stop for lunch, and most of us wanted Taco Bell.  Now, for the last few days we had been seeing the Nacho Fries ads, which Antonio and I were very skeptical of, but in the, end we sold out.

We get to this restaurant, and the young man at the front counter, the only person at the front counter, had special needs of some kind.  I immediately liked this young man, because as soon as he saw Simona he started trying to play peek a boo with her and comment about how cute she is.  Simona who sometimes acts like Klingon, completely ignored him. 

Well, we ordered our food and ordered the nacho boxes which come with nacho fries, a hard shell taco, and a beef and cheese, aka heart attack burrito.  My kids as ever, made the order complicated.  Simona wanted  a taco with only meat.  Antonio wanted the taco only cheese.  I eat everything, and didn't care, but should have held back the cheese on the burrito. 

The worker was confused, too, because there are three nacho fry options, including ours.  You can get the Nacho Box, the Nacho Fry Box, and Nacho Fries.  Really?

I made the young man read the order back, and because I didn't know his name at the time, I said, "Read that order back to me, sweetheart."  (He had no name tag.) He said, "My name is Rick, not sweet heart."  He then proceeded to read my order back line by line as it appeared on the screen: Medium Sprite, Nacho Fry, Hard Shell Taco, etc. and repeat it again because there were two boxes.  It sounded mostly right.

Of course, when I got the order, it wasn't.  In fact, none of the orders were right because so many customers wanted their food their way.  To my surprise, the manager was cool.  She corrected Antonio's order, and got me Simona's taco for free.  

You know what struck me?  Everybody whose order got messed up was patient.  I don't mean condescending assholes.  I mean nobody got upset or complained.  The manager and workers, too, could have been annoyed, but instead, they encouraged Rick.  They were all zen and didn't make a big deal about it.  

In the midst of all this order confusion, my son exploded a Sprite all over the front counter where people pick up orders.  I was like, "Are you serious?" Then, he proceeded to make a bigger mess trying to help to clean up. By then, both of my energized children had danced in the Sprite puddle, despite my telling them not to.  Yeah, I was that irritated mom.  I apologized to the manager and workers at the front desk, and they were like, "Don't worry about it," and meant it. 

Now, I used to work fast food, and I doubt my team would have been so understanding. 

As I was leaving, I said, "Bye Rick!  Thanks a lot.  See you next time."  And he said, "Bye!" and proceeded to tell all the customers to fill out the customer satisfaction survey, which nobody did. 

So, in all of this you are probably wondering if all the Nacho Cheese Fry hype merits a purchase.  Well, it does.  In fact, we are probably going to hit the Taco Bell in the Navajo Reservation in Arizona and get our Nacho Boxes again. 

Since the trip is so rushed, and we are blowing through states, I am going to be realistic and aim for one story a day.  I would rather people tell me stories, but we will see if this morning's breakfast leads to some good ones. 

I hope you enjoyed this Nacho Fry excursion.

Be more zen than you need to be, and write.  #Resist