Don't Cry Over Cold Grease

I’ve lived in Memphis my entire life. It is a wonderful city with lots to offer in the way of entertainment. We are the home to an NBA team, a AAA Baseball team, wonderful museums, Beale Street, Graceland, fabulous dining, a great Zoo and Tunica is just down the road. However, my favorite form of entertainment in Memphis is the drive thru of any fast food place. All you have to do is pull up to that little speaker and you too can experience The Dance of the Drive Thru Dimwits.

First of all, let me say that not all people that work at fast food restaurants fall into this category. There are many that are out there, taking pride in their jobs, working their way through school or retirement. They are helpful and courteous and I am in no way trying to degrade them. Then, there are the ones that always seem to be working the drive thru when my car pulls through. I can always count on the Dimwits to lift my spirits and make me feel extremely intelligent.

In my life, I have been through the drive thru of hundreds of fast food places. What I have found is that although it would seem that all of the Dimwits are trained at the same school, they aren’t all doing the same “dance”. For example, Krystal specializes in putting the one person on the speaker that is completely deaf while McDonald’s tries to make sure that the person at the window stays busy chatting with her fellow fry flippers instead of talking to the customers. Burger King says you can “have it your way” but they NEVER get my order right. Wendy’s usually puts the one person they employ that can’t make change at the window. Sonic………I have nothing bad to say about Sonic. But, my all time favorite drive thru experience occurred at Jack Pirtle’s Chicken on Jackson Ave. near Hollywood.

My mother and I had decided that it was a good idea for us to drive to the hood for fried chicken late one evening. We got to the drive thru at around 7:30 – ok so it wasn’t so late but it was dark. We get to the speaker and order 3, 3 piece meals, all white. Easy enough, right? Wrong. The guy taking our order came back on the speaker, repeated our order and then said, “Pull around, I’m gonna see if I can hook you up”. Now, being that my mother is not as hip as I, she asked me what that meant. I explained to her that the he phrased his sentence, would indicate that there is a possibility that he could NOT “hook us up” How the heck am I supposed to know what he meant!

We pull around to the window and because I am stupid, I lean across and ask, “What do you mean you are going to see if you can hook us up?” He then explains, in a language that I had to interpret for my mother, that they were out of chicken. Come again??? Jack Pirtle’s CHICKEN is out of CHICKEN? I’m sorry, but I’m a bit confused. He went on to explain that “the grease is off”. Obviously, this is an acceptable excuse for not having the only entrée that an establishment sells. It is also not an option to turn the grease ON and possibly cook some more of the only thing you friggin sell. It then occurred to me that maybe this was a business strategy, they cook a bunch of chicken in the morning, turn off the grease to avoid a fire hazard and then close when they sell out – brilliant! This kind gentleman then tells us that, “the other place (I assume he meant another Pirtle’s) might still have some”. Not, I’m very sorry for your inconvenience or we’d be happy to make some more. Nooooo – this guy’s customer service training led him to tell us to go somewhere else. Nice.

So, because we are intelligent women, not to be outdone, my mother and I took a stand. We looked that man right in the eye and said, “Where is another Pirtle’s close to here?” and then we DROVE to a different location in a part of town I had never been in before or care to return to again. All of this, for fried chicken and not even GREAT fried chicken. In fact, the chicken isn’t really that good but the gravy is awesome. I guess the chicken would be better if they weren’t frying it in cold grease.

This is only one of my favorite experiences with drive thru windows. There was a time when the woman at Krystal was so completely out of touch with reality that even my daughter was yelling at the speaker from the backseat. And there was another time when I was forced to throw pickles at the window at Burger King after they made my sandwich wrong 3 times but those are stories for another day. Just remember, chicken places don’t always have chicken. Most fast food employees are idiots and if they guy on the speaker says he will, “see if he can hook you up” just drive away because there is no way you are getting what you came for.