..:S...P...I...D...E...R...B...I...T...E...S:..

Sunday, October 31, 2004

"Step into my office...you're fuckin' fired!"
- There's Something About Mary


THE TACO BELL CHRONICLES

Chapter Four:

"When do you work next?"


all i wanted was a taco.

the last three times i've asked my partner in crime (at the time) to pick me up some Taco Bell, something has happened where i ended up not getting any. it was getting to be a running joke and the night of the Presidential Debate was no exception:

the evening started out innocent enough. i was having some people over to laugh and watch the 2002 Bush/Kerry debates. i figured if we had to drink a beer every time Bush fumbled and fucked up English like it was his second language, we'd be drunk enough not to care who actually won.

anyhow, my friend Nate was already at my apartment and we're waiting for KT to come back from campus with her friend Dana. I sent KT out on Taco duty. now, it’s been years since the undergraduate Taco Bell incidents, so i’m almost ready to think of it as just another fast-food restaurant. but they’re running awful late. i decide to call them and ask them to pleeeeeeze hook me up with some tacos on their way over, in case they forgot.

i should have known i'd never get to have one.

sure enough, a half hour later, in walks two girls empty-handed and visibly shaken from their trauma at the Taco Bell drive-thru. their story goes like this:

they pulled up to the speaker to order the food (MY food. sniff.) and the girl inside was having trouble hearing them. so Dana says, "no, not bean burrito, beeeeFFFFF burrito" and apparently by exaggerating the letter "F" she sent the girl at the drive-thu window into a downward spiral of madness. they pull forward to pay, and the girl takes the money and then says, "by the way, don't ever get smart with me again." the girls in the car are like, "what did you just say?" and she just slams shut the window and walks over to another employee to rant about it, waving her arms around like (KT’s words) she's being attacked by bees. then they're taking too long with the food and Dana decides to ask for the money back because now she's thinking someone's going to spit in the beeeeFFFFF burrito (MY burrito. sigh.) or worse. the crazy bitch (now they can see that her nametag says "Kim") throws the money at them and says, "you're lucky i'm in here or i'd come out there and kick your fucking ass." so now Dana and KT are getting loud too, and some other employee comes over to calm down Krazy Kim. she just shoves this girl away (who it turns out later is actually the store manager???) and says, "don't tell me to relax, i'm the shift supervisor." by this time, everyone is swearing, and Kim is making these moves like she's really going to come outside and attack the car, so Dana starts pulling away. she says that she's going to call the 1-800 number on the window and the nut yells, "go ahead, i don't give a shit, they're not going to fucking fire me." KT shouts a final, "what the hell is your problem?" and Kim answers back with "your mother!" which is ridiculous since her mother was at home watching Court TV at the time. Dana ends the debate with a line from “Clerks:” "this is why you're jockeying a register at Taco Bell, you dumb cunt" and off they go to NOT bring me food again.

so they're telling me this story, and i'm getting all worked up. of course it doesn't help that i'm faint from malnutrition and lack of Taco Bell love and everyone and everything looks like a giant taco to me right now. it's like the cartoon with the guy seeing his buddy as a huge steaming chicken on the desert island. but i've got a dilemma here. if it had been a guy that was threatening people at some drive-thru, i would just go over there and pull the little bastard out of the window by his head, his crooked but carefully arranged baseball cap falling slow-motion to the pavement as he yelps. but here we got this girl-on-girl madness. and we've only got about 15 minutes until the debate starts. nevertheless, me and Nate get working on Plan A. or, should i say, Plan "Egg." this scheme involves taking two raw eggs to the drive-thru (i know, two raw eggs is kinda weak but that's all that was in the fridge) and pelting the bitch when she opens the window to take our money. but then i'm trying to think of a way to do this so that i can still get my goddamn taco (mmmmmm), but i stop dwelling on it and i put two eggs in a plastic bag and we're getting ready to roll. then i start to worry that Kim might not be at the drive-thru after all the excitement she just had. and i don't want to bean some innocent waterhead who's just working there one day a week for beer money. so i decide to call the store real quick and see what's up. i ask for whoever is working the drive-thru (claiming someone forgot my food) and she gets on the phone.

i ask her: "did you just have an altercation with two girls about 10 minutes ago?"

she goes: "listen sir, that's not what happened..." and she starts to go into this alternate reality version of events where she is just a victim who wants nothing more that to happily take money and hand out tacos and smiles forever. i'm confused and then it hits me. all her "sirs" and her tone of voice right now? this dunce thinks that i'm calling from that 1-800 number. she thinks i'm some sort of authority figure. i clear my throat and now i'm suddenly working for Taco Bell and shit gets real funny:

me: "well, i heard that you were physically threatening customers and swearing and..."

her: "that's not what happened sir. they were causing trouble and i was just reacting to them and..."

me: "i'm hearing a different version from what you're telling me." (i’m trying to imitate every similar conversation i’ve gotten from a boss)

her: "who is this?"

me: "your District Manager."

(this is where i figure the jig is up and she's going to say "fuck off" and hang up because she's gotta know who her DM is right? right? wrong.)

her: "listen sir, they were making fun of me at the drive-thru and i can't believe that i would get in trouble over this when it's just my word against hers and-"

me: "well, it's not just your word against them (watch this, i'm really proud of how fast i pull this out of my ass) because there was a vehicle behind them and someone from that car also called the 1-800 number to complain about your behavior."

(oh yeah, i should mention at this point that me, her District Manager, is standing there wearing a shirt with the sleeves cut off, holding two eggs in a baggy, while three giggling heads lean in to listen)

her: (scared now and folding faster than Superman on laundry day) "hey, they started it."

me: "so you were threatening and cursing at customers because you thought they were being rude to you? that's unacceptable. why do you think you can threaten someone when..."

her: "they started harassing me first, it's not fair that i should get in trouble for this and-"

me: "okay, when is your next day off?"

her: "tomorrow."

me: "i'm going to need you to come in so that we can sit down and talk about this to figure out what should be done."

her: "oh no, it's not fair that i should have to come in on my day off when i've already rearranged my schedule this week once and it's my only day off and it's not fair that i should be the one to..." and blah blah fuckin 'blah (bitch is big on this "not fair" concept).

(i hold out the phone in disbelief at this point. i don't know what's funnier, the fact that this idiot thinks i'm her District Manager, or the fact that me, as her DM, can't get her to come in on her day off to save her job. after a couple minutes more of "not fair" i finally give up trying to trick her into coming in on her day off and i switch tactics)

me: "when do you work next?"

her: "Sunday. i open."

(time out. this is where some people that i've told this story to start to turn on me and give me a disapproving "you've gone too far" kinda look. after i told the story at work, my boss actually walked away in disgust and i had to call after her, "hey, i've only been a District Manager for 24 hours, i'm going to make some mistakes!")

me: "okay, don't worry about opening the store. we'll take care of that. you come in later. i need you to come in at noon so we can sit down and figure out what we're going to do."

her: "fine."

(apparently it's infinitely easier to convince someone to stay home instead of coming in. it's the lesson we remember from high school where kids would rather get suspended ten days instead of detention for one day)

so i hang up, and we're all laughing our asses off hoping that she actually gets in trouble for coming in late on Sunday. we talk a lot about it, practically ignoring the Presidential debates. On the TV, one of the candidates says something about “judging people by...” something. that’s all i remember because i spend most of my time fantasizing about being behind one of those podiums next to the actual District Manager of Taco Bell, carefully explaining our parities platform with hand gestures and reassuring nods.

i would declare “you must judge people by how fast they yank clothes out from under a sleeping cat! you must judge people by how rude they are in traffic or on the phone!"

you know, when i thought about it later, i think that this drive-thru nut said all that stuff because of the crazy nature of the drive-thru itself. it’s kind of like a phone call where the person you’re talking to pops their head in the window of your house as soon as you hang up. so, if even if you’re the kind of person that's rude to strangers on the phone, you’d be like, “oh shit, how are ya?” all nice if their head popped out of your refrigerator. instantly confronting someone at the drive thru-window is a strange awkward ending to what’s basically a garbled angry phone call. does that make any sense? so, to be fair, Kim probably didn’t know how to handle it. It’s kind of like when you’re in traffic and you’re yelling at the car next to you for whatever infraction, then, three miles later, you’re both idling at a red light together. do you look over? you have to look over. a friend of mine used to be prepared for just that kind of situation. if someone was glaring at a red light, he’d slowly put on his winter gloves, sunglasses, and the motorcycle helmet that he kept on his passenger seat. this is while sitting in a '92 Ford Escort. no one ever raced him.

And, you know, it sucks that the debate party was full of such distractions because there were more people over than usual. although i suspect that all the guests were invited by KT just to make it less likely that i'd drop my pants and press my groin up against the TV whenever the President is talking. i've been known to do this after exactly half a beer. one day she'll understand what i'm talking about when i exclaim:

“hey! if someone would just take a picture right now, it would look like President is suckin my dick! we could make T-shirts! where's everybody going?"

Anyway, no one even remembers what the candidates said because of our careful dissection of the drive-thru incident that lasted like eight hours. and by the time i've told everyone about my taco hijinx all weekend, i'm getting tired of the story and also doubting that Krazy Kim would really NOT figure that shit out in two days and not show up to work. one girl at my job says that the only way she'd be screwed is if she decides to keep the phone call and meeting secret from her store manager, maybe hoping that it'll blow over after the fake "meeting" and the less people that know the better it would be for her. she has a point. i mean, as soon as she would mention anything to her store manager or fellow employees, they would call the real DM and the cat's out of the bag. so i'm shocked as you are by the happy ending to the story:

KT works at Starbucks near the Taco Hell in question, and Sunday afternoon she's telling her co-workers all about the incident. at about 11:00 a couple of them go across the street to get some tacos (damn, i miss tacos) and then they run back to tell her the news:

there's a sign on the door that says:

"Will not open until 1:00. Sorry for any inconvenience."

true story. no bullshit. i got five witnesses who saw the sign.

EPILOGUE::

days later, Dana and KT actually call the 1-800 number to complain about Kim and they are given the phone number of the store manager. this woman then proceeds to tell them that she knows all about the situation and that the District Manager is handling it. of course the question is, are they talking about the real one or are they talking about me? because i'm not handling shit. i'm not rearranging my schedule again to meet with that girl. it's "not fair." i got too many new responsibilities that come with my new job title. the other day Burger King put too much salt on their fries, kid at KFC shorted me on change, 7-11 has a clerk who stares too much. sorry, there's just too many other stores in my district that need my attention so my work here is done.

2nd EPILOGUE:

This is where no moral to this story emerges because it’s true. Those two eggs? I noticed them on the windowsill, next to the phone charger, still in the plastic bag after about a week, fermenting to perfection. I’d like to say I used them to make a Mexican-style omelet, i’d like to say that I forced myself to eat a rotten omelet on the day of the Presidential election. I’d like to say that something meaningful happened to those two eggs, since the story introduced and then forgot about them completely, kind of like having a gun hanging over the fireplace in a movie that’s never used. I’d like to say that they did, indeed, smack somebody in the head that deserved it instead of just getting dropped into the trash without any ceremony.

but they didn’t.

::: david - 2:28 PM [+] :::
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