Drive-Thru Etiquette

Is there such a thing as Drive-Thru etiquette? Should a person order sixty dollars’ worth of soft tacos at the window or does that require parking the car and walking inside? I know, I know, walking, it's the worst.

I ask this after stopping at the Dunkin Donuts in Plattsburgh yesterday. For the record I think DD is the biggest peddler of crap in this country, so don’t think I was ordering those awful flatbread things or dozens of doughnuts. Please don’t think that. My wife needed a coffee, that’s it. Anyway, there were three cars in front when we rounded to the menu. I guess when factoring the Plattsburgh angle, it was really like six cars in front. Aren't I so funny? Either way, twenty-two minutes seems like an extreme wait for a large with skim milk.

Why the wait? The people in front ordered bags and bags of this DD vomit, weeks’ worth of food and coffee and creamers from this little window. It was 11.45AM, so it wasn’t like the office gopher grabbing morning Joe. Is it laziness or stupidity or lack of etiquette that tells a person it’s OK to complete a $47 fast-food order without parking the car?

Maybe it’s not all the consumer’s fault. On Fourth of July we decided to see an 8pm showing of THIS IS THE END. On the way to the theatre we stopped for two veggie subs at Subway. We entered the restaurant at 7.20PM, there were two people ahead of us, we exited at 7.55PM, subs in hand. Why the thirty-five minute wait? The girl making the subs wasn’t exactly the quickest gun going, and her partner was too busy texting in the backroom. Speaking of time, THIS IS THE END is not a bad movie by any means. But it is a complete waste of time.

Back to yesterday. After waiting almost a half hour for a single coffee, we pulled to the DD window, and my wife told the girl with the headset that she would be paying for the order after ours. Why? Because if we had to wait twenty-two minutes, that meant the woman behind had to wait twenty-three, which, in my wife’s mind, was twenty-one minutes too long, so she deserved a freebie. Now that’s Drive-Thru etiquette.

Brian Huba
7.10.13