Murphy's Law of the Drive-Thru

A fellow blogger and great friend wrote about one of his driving pet peeves, the non-use of a turn signal. Well, one of my, probably only, driving pet peeves is the use (or mis-use) of drive-thrus. If you haven't read it lately, Murphy's Law of the Drive-Thru states: "Whatever line you choose will be the slowest line"

Drive-Thrus are everywhere - restaurants, banks, drugstores, even dry cleaners! But beyond getting stuck in the slowest line at the drive-thru, my pet peeve is about the people who mis-use the drive-thru. We live in a world full of self-absorbed people (Newsflash) and that is escalated in a drive-thru line. Two examples....

I went to a local McDonald's to get a milkshake to ease the pain of my toothache. This high-tech establishment not only had two windows, but two speakers. I got behind a mini-van - the kiss of death, a mini-van at McDonalds that will most likely order 25 happy meals. She pulled up to speaker 2 while speaker 1 was completely free. I thought, "Well, maybe there isn't instructions on how to use these speakers or the other one is out." Oh no, after she ordered her long list and moved on, I pulled up and saw a sign that says, "If there is no car at speaker 1, please move forward." It was all about her and didn't realize the 25 cars behind her were wanting to order as well.

Next, I head off to the drug store to pick up my medicine. I broke Murphy's Law by getting in the faster moving lane only to get slowed down by the huge SUV in front of me. Once she got her prescription she sat and repositioned everything in her car, checked her makeup and assorted other tasks before pulling forward so I could do my business. Very few drive-thrus force you to pull directly in traffic. When I'm done and I need to put away money, or get ready to drive on the road, I pull forward enough to let the line progress until I'm ready to motor on. Not her. And sadly, when I pulled to the window, the druggist had put up a sign "Please end all cell phone calls before pulling up to the window." It's a sad day when people are so rude we have to tell them to do that.

Obviously part of my frustrations came from the pain shooting through my gums at the time, but I really believe the world would be a better place, at the drive-thru and everywhere else, if we thought about our fellow man first and got our face out of the mirror. Contrary to the world's view...it's not all about you.