Dunkin' in my town is a stressful situation
I live in a town that is not small. But it isn’t big. The busiest restaurant on any given day is Applebee’s. That place is packed. I don’t exactly hate Applebee’s. It’s fine. However, the idea of it being packed every night from 5 until close tells you all you need to know about White Lake, Michigan. Which is a legit nice town! Unless you are into the restaurant scene.
To give you one more data point about our restaurant situation here, a chain burrito place called Moe’s opened. I had a burrito with double white meat chicken yesterday. It is like just about any burrito you would get at Chipotle. I also got a small cup of Moe’s sauce, which is nicely spicy, and I dipped my burrito in it. It was a very good burrito all things considered. This caused me to unironically say to my wife…”You know, I think this is the best thing I have eaten in White Lake”. A seething indictment of me and the White Lake dining scene. But praise for Moe’s.
Now that I have set the stage, I will get to the point. We do not have a drive-thru Starbucks. We have one in Kroger. The issue with that Starbucks’ location is I am not going to navigate the zoo-like Kroger parking lot, wander into Kroger in the cold Michigan weather, and order drinks for me and Lisette (Lisette is my wife. She is a lovely woman).
There is a local place I could go to. It is in a strip mall with easy access. They are mean to me in there. That situation is an entire other post.
Lucky for me, there is a drive-thru Dunkin’ on my way home from dropping my daughter off at school. Much like Applebee’s, I do not dislike Dunkin’. I get Lisette a large coffee with two cream and two Splenda. I get a large iced tea with two Splenda. It is not the best iced tea ever, but you know what it is? It is serviceable and fine. If more people were good with serviceable and fine we’d all be a lot happier.
At least 5 times a week I pull up to the Dunkin’ speaker to place the same exact order. As I start placing my order, one of two things occur:
- The person recognizes my voice, stops me halfway through ordering the coffee, says they got the tea as well, and I pull around. This happens approximately 90% of the time.
- The person does not know me and I give my order normally without the order taker stopping me and saying they got it before I finish.
If situation 1 happened every time, it would be fine.
HOWEVER...
On days when they don’t “got it”, I am generally saying my order relatively fast. The order taker gets flustered, I get flustered and half the time they want to put cream in my iced tea. Therefore, I have started ordering slower and having pauses where I think they might interrupt to tell me they got it. It makes for a very unusual speaking cadence, which bothers me greatly.
Is this a problem only a doofus faces? Yes. Is it an important problem? No. Should I adjust my speaking cadence and speak normally? I would if I could, but I cannot. Does this whole situation make me feel anxiety when I pull up to the drive-thru? Yes. Should this bother me? Probs not. Is this why I am medicated and seek therapy? Probs so.
That is it. This is the post. I feel anxiety at the Dunkin’ drive thru on the regular.
Sometimes my dog is with me and he looks at me like this when I order.
