Receipt: Gratification
The shaving gel was foaming on my right hand as I rubbed it to my right cheek and up towards my forehead and back down towards my left cheek: finished. Now, I grabbed my razor with my right hand and started shaving myself with about an hour left until I needed to be seated, in a suit, and at my desk at work. I took my time and moved the razor slowly up and down my right cheek. I wanted to make sure I did not cut off all my sideburns.
On the counter on the right sat my cellphone. It was pristine and dry. One of my morning goals is not to splash my phone with water while I shave. From the cellphone’s speakers played the latest podcast episode of “Death, Sex, and Money.” In the mirror, I saw the polka dots on the glass that came from water stains and shaving gel. It needed to be cleaned yet not today. Perhaps, tomorrow? Perhaps. As I put the razor down near the faucet to rinse it, I received a call from a Poughkeepsie area number, and I answered it.
“Hello?” I said.
“ Is this Mark?” the voice replied. I hoped it was the lottery, a successful ex-lover, or some good person confirming my identity because some billionaire heard about me and wanted to pay my student loans. “I’m looking for Mark, he completed a survey about McDonalds, and I wanted to talk to him.” There was not a billionaire paying a young Black man’s student loans therefore, I will continue to pray for this to happen to me. This phone call was about the McDonald’s receipt survey that I completed less than 24 hours ago.
“Yes, this is Mark.”
“Mark, I wanted to apologize for the wait that you had to endure last night while you visited McDonalds. My name is Peggy and I am one of the managers here. I will talk with the manager on-duty last night and make sure she knows about this issue. We need to improve our drive-thru wait times”
“Thank-you”
“You should not have had to wait ten minutes. They should’ve pulled the car in front of you into the waiting lane. May I ask, what did you order?”
“I ordered the two cheeseburger meal, a medium fry, and a medium Sprite with no ice. It’s a simple order.”
“Yes, it. I’m not sure what happened and of course they should have apologized. Not even offer an apology. They should have said ‘thanks for waiting and being patient’”
“Yes, I agree it was weird that I had to wait that long for my food and when I get there to the window they do not even apologize or anything. I found that weird. I’ve been eating McDonalds for a longtime for many years and I do not usually go through the drive-thru at this McDonalds. There is frequently a line so I go inside. They are much quicker inside but I saw that the drive-thru only had two cars ahead of me and I decided to risk it.”
“Yeah, Mark our drive-thru is very busy. We do about 70% of our business is from the drive-thru.”
“Wow! That’s the supermajority of the business,” I chuckled thinking that if the drive-thru was a major party in the United States Senate the Drive-Thru party could easily vote through cloture, stop debate, and pass their own agenda with limited interference from the minority party.
“Mark, it is the majority of our business. I wanted to thank-you for taking the time to fill out the survey. We appreciate it. Not just the bad but the good as well.”
“Oh, yes, I do have good. There’s a young guy who works there during the day, Eljiah he’s very nice, polite, and frequently checks in to see if I needed anything. I enjoy going to the store when he is working. He makes my day. That is some good. I wanted to put that on a survey a while ago, yet I lost the receipt”
“Elijah is a great young man. Everyone loves him and he works hard. We are happy to have him on the team. Alright Mark, thanks again for completing the survey
