I took a chance this week and went to McDonald’s because they came out with a new snack wrap. Since an outbreak of a foodborne parasite has put a damper on any fast-food place that uses lettuce (thought to be the culprit), I questioned myself about how smart this decision was. The final determination of who was responsible for not keeping food free of contamination had reached a dead end after a suspected farm’s produce was tested and resulted in a false positive, so anything could still be the cause of the issue. However, I am a late generation Boomer who still has faith in the common sense of the CEOs in legacy restaurant chains such as McDonald’s, and I figured they would not be conducting business if their food was resulting in more illnesses, nor would they be dumb enough to not swap out their supplier if they were not sure of the cleanliness of the products.
Since it was the first day with the new food item, naturally I was sent two windows forward to the “other” pick-up point. This is the midway point between driving away with your food and having to park to the side in a numbered spot to receive it from a server tasked with backorder running.
I was waiting for the cooks to catch up and make sure they had the order right. They did and even designated the new item with a sticker (I wrote about the paper label issue once before). While I was in park by that dull window which offered a view of the staff’s safety gear hung on the far wall (another issue I brought up in a prior post), a woman exited the side door to run an order to a parked vehicle off to my right.
The runner noted to the driver, as she handed over the order, that his gas cap was hanging and the hatch cover open. She then walked back and replaced the cap and closed the cover with the efficiency of an experienced service station attendant. Heck, maybe she did pump gas at some point in her life, this being New Jersey where self-service is forbidden, but women can run gas stations.
The point is, that type of extra attention to detail is what makes this country run better. It may never be perfect, but that moment taken to secure a gas cap probably saved the driver a lot of wasted gas fumes disappearing into the atmosphere. Also, he got his food delivered fresh and hot.
My food arrived shortly after that. And no, it did not cause me any health issues. The new wrap was, in fact, quite delightful.
Now about that third drive-thru window.. . .
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