the queso quandary (a slapback sunday bit)

“if train ‘a’ leaves chicago southbound at 60 miles per hour and train ‘b’ leaves dallas northbound and crosses the path of train ‘a’ five hours later after traveling a distance of 967 miles and then you take the speed of train ‘b’ and multiply it by the atomic weight of boron taking the resulting product and dividing it by amount of feathers on the eagle on the mexican flag what would you get???”

that’s what you would THINK i asked, going off the look i just got.

but that ain’t even close.

here’s what i really asked:

“hey…would it cost extra if i wanted my bacon cheeseburger to come with pepper jack cheese instead of regular cheese?”

i had NO idea it was an essay question.

or an “open ended” question.

see, in all my sales training (of which i’ve sat through what feels like a second college education, hours-wise) i’ve been taught that yes-no questions are “close ended” and do not induce a long-winded response, let alone one where she has to go to her “lifeline” as if regis had just asked her if this was her final answer.

but that’s what happened. let’s just say i could dumpster dive behind the government subsidized shit box she calls home for a year, root through her mail, and probably NEVER see a discarded mensa invite. or rejection letter. or even, something that contained the letters “m-e-n-s-a” in it, unless there’s some dating publication where she took out an ad to meet the “MEN in SA”. but, i digress…

ah, whataburger, post 9:00 p.m. on a tuesday. only one reason your average schmuck ends up with their car in this line, typically…

good weed.

for me, NOT the case. see, i just got hired OFF of spherion and ON to dell full time. don’t know what pre-employment stuff that will entail – but i’m cool either way. no, i ended up in the valley of the mental giants because kramer accepted my idea of all-you-can-eat bar-b-que at green mesquite (our traditional tuesday, save for the times he’s getting laid) and then upon me arriving at his place said he couldn’t go ’cause he was doing laundry.

he also said it was too late to eat.

guess he has to keep an eye on his girlish figure (’cause he knows i won’t).

but, since i had just come from work and was STARVING, i told him i had to go eat and that i was off to whataburger. he replied, “cool…number five”. and handed me six bucks.

a moment on the lips, a lifetime on the hips – think about that when you’re sucking down bacon cheeseburgers at ten o’clock at night, astro boy. but, i digress…

…and hey, at least i’ll hit the gym tomorrow.

but back to the genius at the drive thru – i think she was scheduled SPECIFICALLY because of the “good weed” probability of the patrons. if you’re stoned you can put up with her not only not having english as a first language, but with it not even being in her top five. you wouldn’t ask to change something on your burger, ’cause that might delay it’s delivery, and you need that shit, like, YESTERDAY. but here she is…barely able to hold her mouth closed as she stands there, looking like she takes FULL advantage of the employee discount on the food, and you wonder to yourself if she and the staff take shots of the leftover grease in “lubbock is for lovers” shot glasses at the end of the shift, given the average girth of the late-night whatachica. and she’ll never complain about her place in society or what wrung on the economic ladder she’s scraped her way up to because she’ll never see the bigger picture and she’ll never care. she is who she is and she is where she is and she’s accepted it and moved on mentally and doesn’t give two shits and a fuck that i suddenly want custom cheese on my burger – i just need to take the bag, give her the cash, and get the fuck out of her line.

or at least that’s the vibe i got. but i’m still pretty sure she didn’t understand me.

the bottom line is, as cruel and evil as my commentaries may sound, we NEED people like rosalinda in the world because if she DIDN’T get us (and so many of our sponge-bob loving, flannel shorts wearing, herbal smoking brethren) our food at the late night drive thru, nobody would. i’d love my job if it wasn’t for the FUCKING CUSTOMERS some of the time, and i don’t NEARLY have the annoying baseline she does.

so, when i got slightly upset at the reaction i got with my simple enquirio de queso, i thought about all this, and realized that i need her right where she’s at in my world…and that next time, i’ll think to mention that when i’m still on the speaker box level of the whataburger order cycle – before i step up to the pay mix solution portion of the hunger satisfaction transaction.