I was on the road the other day and needed a quick burger so I did the drive-thru. I experienced a totally new act of sheer laziness/mental instability. As I was driving through a shopping center parking lot to the fast food franchise, a woman in an old rust bucket sedan of sagging vintage suddenly backed out of a parking space, gunning it. I slammed on the brakes to avoid rear ending her… or more appropriately, to avoid being front ended by her.

She then careered along a path parallel to the drive thru lane. I watched as she pulled around and cut in front of a car as the line progressed. She had bypassed the place-your-order box and was one car back from the pickup window. I ordered and ended up two cars back form the maniac, the driver of the car between us still shaking her head in consternation.

Momentarily, the line advanced and I rolled down my window to eavesdrop on what promised to be a juicy conversation. It will probably come as no surprise that the maniac woman was loud. Plenty loud for her complaint to carry across the fifty or so feet of parking lot asphalt.

I will not even try to recreate her colorful patois. Let me just explain in my own words. She had picked up her drive-thru order and pulled into the first available parking space in order to consume it in her car. At some point during her meal, apparently very close to the end, she realized they did not make her burger exactly how she wanted it. Specifically, there were onions and she’d said no onions.

The manager came to the window and graciously offered to recreate the burger, in psite of the line jumping breach of etiquette. She gestured for the patron to return the unfinished carcass. The customer asked belligerently what the manager wanted. The manager explained she would take the foul mistake burger back and dispose of it. The customer asked why. The manager said she just wanted to be helpul.

Then the customer admitted that she’d eaten it. But I thought you didn’t want onions asked the manager. The driver got exceptionally loud and angry at this. What was the manager going to do? Sell the burger to someone else? A torrent of expletives and insinuation followed. It did not stop until the new, onionless burger was proffered. In the mix, the driver suggested she be given another order of french fries and another soft drink. Apparently as some sort of payback for the pain and suffering she had endured.

So what do we learn from this? Well, for one thing, if you’re so large that covering yourself in drapery fabric is preferable to yoga pants and a big and tall man’s 4XL undershirt, you’re probably not going to get out of your car and walk into the fast food franchise when they get your order wrong at the drive-thru.

Seriously, though, when did it become acceptable to cut the drive-thru line without even making a stop at the talk box to try and score free food. And if you’re going to demand replacement food for an incorrect order, don’t you think you should be able to show what was incorrect about the initial order?

It begs the question – were there really onions on the first burger or was this just the chunky shyster method for doubling your value meal in the modern age?