I'm not really sure that they love to see me smile

Kyle has small group in Spring Arbor on Saturday mornings. In our ongoing effort to save money on gas, I usually drop him off and take Jack into Jackson to do our grocery shopping while he's there. This last weekend, I was done shopping before he was done at small group, so I had some time to kill.

When we got to Spring Arbor, Jack was asleep so I didn't want to get him out of the car and go into the Archer's house to wait for Kyle, so I decided to drive down the road to McDonald's for a cheeseburger and a diet coke. It was only 10:30ish, but I had eaten breakfast 5 hours ago. It felt like the middle of the afternoon.

This McDonald's is notorious for being so, so slow so I didn't expect to get my food quickly. When I pulled into the parking lot, I could see that there were two cars between me and the one at the order speaker. Any other day, I would have driven away to avoid the frustration, but I had plenty of time and was curious to see how long it would take. Here's the timeline of what happened:

10:31 I pulled into the drive-thru line. Like I said, there were three cars in front of me.

10:45 I arrived at the ordering area. That's right . . . 14 minutes later. Normally, I'd be irritated enough to leave by now, but I was so interested in seeing how long it would take that I was more amused than anything.

10:46 I placed my order. I asked for a cheeseburger and a diet coke. The lady's response? "NO LUNCH!" That's all she said. "NO LUNCH!" She could have said, "We're not serving lunch yet," or "We only have breakfast available right now." Instead, she just shouted "NO LUNCH!" into the speaker. I placed my order and she gave me my total and said, "Please pull around." Unfortunately, the cars in front of me hadn't moved and I couldn't go anywhere.

10:48 The line started moving.

10:50 I paid.

10:54 I got my diet coke (without the cheeseburger because there was NO LUNCH!).

I'd be tempted to say that they're just having a bad day and this probably isn't how it normally is in this particular drive thru, but I can't say that. It's ALWAYS slow. No matter who's working or what day it is, there's always a long wait. I guess this McDonald's does have a fast food monopoly in Spring Arbor.

I waited 23 minutes for a diet coke. I guess the joke's on me.