When the number meal system breaks down…
Sep 13th, 2006 by Nate
Today I go to Subway to get lunch for me and the Walde.? I get a wrap, half a tuna grinder, a bottle of soda and 2 bags of chips.? I lay it all out on the counter, all ready to buy it.? The guy looks at me and says “Do you want to make this a meal?” and I totally freak out.? What does that even mean?? If I say “no”, do I somehow have to pay more?? If I say “yes”, does something weird happen?? Do I have to buy MORE stuff?? I don’t know what “meal” means in this context, I didn’t order anything called “meal”.? So I just sort of stare at the guy for like 5 seconds, and finally blurt out “I don’t know what that means.? I just want to buy this stuff”.? And the guy gets all pissy!? What?!?!?!
I mean, I’m not super stupid, the numeric meal system is a cornerstone of modern civilization.? When you order, you just say the number, and then you usually have to say the word “coke”, and bam, you’re done.? Occasionally, you are made to say their stupid vendor specific adjectives like “super” or “biggie” or “king” or “mega” or whatever. ? Makes perfect sense.? But after you already order a bunch of stuff?? Don’t even mention the word meal to me, or I will completely lose my mind.
Anne and I are super impressed about the recent posting.
More so that you posted something, but your story about your experience at subway is absolutely histerical!
By far the WORST implementation of the numeric meal system is Dunkin Donuts. It only really works when there are very few choices to pick from, like McDonalds. With Dunkin Donuts, there are just too many choices to make “pick by number” work effectively. Let’s say, on any given day, they have 10 varieties of bagels to choose from. With each bagel, you can have it cut or not cut, toasted, nuked, or plain. And then you have like maybe 8 or so spreads you can put on it (pb, a million types of cream cheese, butter, whatever). And what’s worse? Many of those options are mutually exclusive.. you can have your bagel cut in half, and toasted, with cream cheese, or not cut in half, you get the point. And don’t even get me started on the coffee. small, medium, large, with cream, whole milk, half and half, splenda, cold, hot, various syrups, etc… And they usually have like 30 different kinds of donuts, which you can’t really personalize too much, but anyway my point is that in order to effectively implement a numbering system, you would need like 30,000 numbers in order to get exactly what you want. Imagine ordering a number 26,453 and Anne totally ripping you a new asshole because you accidently ordered the 26,455b or something.
The worst part though? A few weeks ago I go to dunkin donuts, and order a cinnamon (sp) raisin bagel, toasted, cut, with cream cheese, and a medium ice coffee with cream and sugar. After I was done ordering, the idiot rube behind the counter tells me “Next time you order, please specify the meal number before you place the order”. I wanted to take a medium fat free skim latte with 2 equals and a shot of fat free syrup and drop kick it into her butthole. That really pissed me off. Stupid dunkin donuts needs to stop the whole number thing, it’s so incredibly dumb.
They did it to me AGAIN! I bought the same thing today that I did the last time, and he asked me if I wanted to make a meal out of it. I just said “Whatever”, and pushed the stuff toward him.
And that, apparently, is all you need to do to solve this vexing problem. Just say “whatever”. QED.