May I take your order?

There’s an old joke that often comes back to me when I find myself in this kind of situation...

This old guy goes to the fast food drive-thru for lunch. The young voice in the speaker asks to take his order. He replies, “I have a $5 bill. Just give me whatever the heck you want me to have.”

He hears back over the speaker, “I’m sorry sir, you will have to tell us what you want. We can’t make that decision for you.”

Again he says, “I have a $5 bill. Just give me whatever the heck you want me to have.”

The response he hears, “I’m sorry sir, we can’t do that.”

So he finally says, “Well, why not? You did yesterday!”

It’s funny because it’s true.

I spend a lot of time in drive-thru queues. Mostly for drinks, not so much for food. Between my Diet Coke habit and Scott’s coffee needs, it’s almost a daily thing.

Besides the fact that I always need to take a sip of my drink before I drive away (heaven forbid they give me regular Coke instead of diet; or sweet tea if I asked for unsweet!), there are some other things that drive me crazy in the drive-thru queue:

I’ve made list.

1. Long trucks with LOUD hemi engines. There was one behind me in the line today and both I and the speaker box voice had to literally scream at each other over the engine racket. Of course, when the big, loud truck got up to the speaker to place his order, he cut the engine off so he speak without yelling and hear everything the speaker box voice said. Well good for him. What about for the good of the rest of us? Never mind that I am now deaf and have a raspy throat from all the yelling. If you have to turn that thunderous engine off just so you can hear anyway, why not just park the thing and go inside? The rest of us would greatly appreciate it.
   
2. Vehicles pulling anything on a trailer hitch. There is barely room for all the oversized SUVs and the big hemi engine trucks anyway. When you add a hitched boat or lawn mower on a trailer, it invariably pushes a car in the back of the line out into the street and blocks traffic. I’ve been the one being honked at out in the street and it isn’t pretty. Again, just the park thing and go inside. You’ll need to take up three or four parking spaces to do that, and most likely a handicapped one at that, but so be it.
   
3. People who place their orders at the speaker box and are told the total amount of their bill, but yet refuse to even think about getting their wallet out until they actually get up to the window where someone is already holding their bag of yummies out of the window. If your drive-thrus are as busy as the ones I visit, then there’s always a car of two in front of you providing ample time to get your money in hand after you place your order and before you actually arrive at the pick-up window. And, hey, what a novel idea that if your money’s in hand and ready to hand over first, then both your hands are free to fill with food. I realize this takes coordination and a bit of organizational skill, but you can do it. I know you can!
   
4. Why do they call it a drive-THRU anyway? You don’t drive THROUGH anything. Maybe we should all start calling it a drive-AROUND. Maybe a drive-BY would be more accurate. Of course, drive-BY has all kinds of other violent connotations, but given the nature of this beast (and no, I’m not talking about myself), a drive-by might be in order.

It’s after two o’clock now which means happy hour at Sonic. Which means half price drinks. Gotta go. It’s drive-by time.

I thought you ought to know about it. Buy it back if you want it—you can make it official in the presence of those sitting here and before the town elders. You have first redeemer rights. If you don't want it, tell me so I'll know where I stand. You're first in line to do this and I'm next after you. Ruth 4:4