Fast Food Nightmare

Who has ever had a fast food nightmare? You know, the ones where you go to your local fast food place to quickly pick up a bite to eat, but it winds up being a long drawn out event just to get your food? That happened to me not too long ago. You see...I was already having a bad morning. Everything, and I mean, everything, was rubbing me the wrong way that day. We've all had those days, haven't we? Well, usually I don't get too upset about "little things" (that's what my grandmother referred to those types of inconsequential things that affect life. "Those are just little things..." she'd tell us. It seems, though, that particular day, those "little things" were really starting to tick me off. For starters, I went to pump my gas using my debit card, and the gas pump refused to print me a receipt from the pump. It, in fact, told me I was going to have to go inside to get my receipt. I thought...why pay at the pump if you're going to have to go in and get a receipt? That defeats the whole purpose of convenience in using the pump outside...Grrrrrrrrrr......

After I started thinking about it, I realized I had to get over it, and I definitely needed to work on developing my patience. So, I prayed that God would send me patience. Now...all you Christians out there know when you pray for patience, you're in fact, setting yourself up good because God is going to deliver it to you, in good measure. He's not going to just "hand out a helping dose of it to you". He's going to make you work for it by putting you in situations where your patience is going to be tried in a myriad of ways. For some reason, God decided to answer that prayer within the next couple of hours.

Ok...now I'm getting to the heart of the story (you thought I veered off subject and I forgot about what I originally meant to tell you, didn't you?). Anyhow, I decided to go through the drive-thru to get some breakfast at a fast food place (I'll leave the name of this establishment out of the story since I don't want to penalize the entire company for one franchisee's problems). There were about five or six cars ahead of me at the time I got in line. I had been to this restaurant before, and it wasn't out of the ordinary to see that many cars in line. The line usually moved fairly quickly, so I didn't worry about it. Five minutes passed by, and nobody was moving. Then another five minutes went by. At this point, we did make some progress because one car moved forward in line. Five more minutes went by, and I'm thinking...when am I ever going to get up to the speaker to place my order? Well, finally after 15 minutes, I made it up to the speaker, and I sat there probably 3 or 4 minutes, no response whatsoever from anyone. The board was usually lit, but I noticed it was dark. At this point, I'm thinking...I don't ever remember hearing or seeing anyone place their orders out of their vehicle windows, so maybe the speaker is out of order. That must be the reason the line was taking so long because everybody was having to pull up to the drive-thru window to place their orders...that's it. So...I decided to pull forward. I hadn't moved a few feet past the speaker when I heard someone blurting out about "taking my order". I was beginning to see red at this point. I knew I couldn't roll back and give the order because the car behind me had pulled ahead to the speaker, and if I stayed in line, I'd end up getting the person's order behind me and I would wind up tying up the line even more. So...my next game plan was to go inside and place the order. I just knew it couldn't get any worse than the drive-thru. Little did I know that the nightmare was only beginning...

I went inside and I didn't have to wait too terribly long. There was a gentleman ahead of me, and another lady who had already placed her order and was waiting on her food. I told the lady behind the counter my order which entailed two large decaffeinated coffees, and that all this was "to go". After I placed my order and I had paid for the food, she takes out these huge cups for me use at the self-serve island where everybody gets their drinks. I had never seen a fast food place give cups like these before, and I had never seen this particular restaurant give cups like these for coffee. Like I said, they were HUGE. They must have been 32 ounce cups, and not only that, they were plastic instead of styrofoam. I thought...well that's ok, I can use these, so I went over to the self-serve island. I started dispensing the coffee, and it barely trickled out. I thought...this figures. After all I had endured outside in the drive-thru and now there are more problems inside. So I went back over to the counter, informed the lady that the decaffeinated coffee was empty, and asked her if she could pour me some from back behind the counter. She agreed, and went over to the decaffeinted coffee behind the counter, and guess what...it's empty, also. Noooooooooo....this can't be happening. She tells me that it'll be a few minutes to brew me some more coffee. She also tells me that she had given me the wrong cups because she thought I wanted soda (remember I did tell her I wanted two coffees). Well, that solves the mystery of why the cups were so enormous and why they were plastic instead of styrofoam. She informed me she would get me some coffee cups instead.

I figured since the coffee had to be brewed that the employee would go fetch the coffee grounds and put them in the machine to begin the brewing process. Now, there were four or five employees working in there at the time, and with the exception of one employee who was preparing the food and another one who was trying to bounce back and forth between the drive-thru people and the people eating inside, the other ones were basically just standing around. Not getting food together for us in line, or the other people in the drive-thru. I waited about five minutes, and no one had put any coffee in the machine to brew, even though there were several people just hanging around doing absoutely nothing. Every once in a while one of them would come up and ask me, "Is all this to go?". Then I had another one come up and ask, "Now, what did you order again??". Ummmm....the receipt is still on the counter in front of you. I was a very unhappy camper, and I was about to "lose it". I thought...Am I on "Candid Camera"? This can't possibly be for real. I prayed, "Lord, please don't let me say something I'm gonna regret". While I was waiting, I saw this man out in the parking lot who evidently had decided to come eat there but was delayed because he was having to change a flat tire. I thought...should I go out there and warn him not to come in because, if he does, it might just finish his day off? :)

Well, to make this long story even longer, I finally did get my coffee and my food. And the order was right, so that was the only redeeming part of the story. I began to reflect on this while driving away that the Lord had set me up "big time" on that one, because I know that insanity didn't happen by accident (and I wasn't on "Candid Camera", either). I really believe God was answering my prayer that day for patience.

We might not be all that patient sometimes, but isn't it good to know that we have a loving God who is, through all the good times, and especially the bad times we have? Those times where we don't behave as we ought? We might be lacking in the patience department, but God has unlimited patience. He even displays His patience for people who are lost and unsaved by providing them opportunities to come to Him. We all have a final day, though, when our chances are over and our "number is up". He'll talk to you over and over about your salvation, maybe not every day, but he'll give you the opportunity. When He does, take Him up on it. He loves you and wants to guide you in your day-to-day life and give you a home with Him in Heaven one day. If you ignore Him, there might not be another chance tomorrow...