My six year old nephew loves to eat at Burger King, as a matter of fact, so does my three year old niece. I know that Burger King is not the healthiest of places to eat, but I think it’s ok to eat there every once in awhile, so as a treat every once in a while I let them choose where they want to eat and most times they both agree on Burger King. Today was a double treat day because they were able to go to the store and buy a toy with their allowance and they were able to choose where they wanted to eat - which of course was Burger King or “BK” as they both call it.

“We want to eat at BK!” they announced from the back of the Trailblazer. “We want to eat at BK!”

So, off we went to the Burger King on Craig and Interstate 15 - little did I know what we were getting into when I pulled up and parked in the parking lot.

I went up the counter and ordered my order, “I’ll take a number one with no lettuce.” I don’t like the lettuce from Burger King because it’s shredded and everyone that has known me for any amount of time knows that I don’t like shredded lettuce.

“would you like cheese with that?” the young, friendly girl at the counter asked. I think her name was Megan but I’m not real sure now.

“No, no cheese.” I said, wondering whey they always ask me at Burger King if I want cheese. I think if I wanted cheese I’d have asked for it from the beginning, but it’s ok - I guess they’re doing their job asking if you want cheese when you order a number one without lettuce.

The kids ordered their meals and then my mom was going to order something but didn’t know what to order so she asked the young friendly girl at the counter what was good. The counter girl, Megan - I think, said that the tender gilled sandwich was good, so my mom decided on that.

Megan, repeats our order and then makes a strange request, “Can you guys sit on this side of the restaurant” she said pointing toward the windows.

“You’re not planning on having us shot?” I asked jokingly.

She laughed and said, “No, we’re just going to start cleaning and it makes it easier to have everyone on one side that way we’re not sweeping under your table.”

It was a reasonable request, so we sat by the windows. When the order was ready I picked it up and took everyone’s drink orders and went to fill the cups. As I was filling the cups a customer came up to the counter complaining that his sandwich was too dry. I didn’t really pay much more attention to his troubles because it seemed trivial and something that really didn’t concern me. As I walked to the table I saw my mom choking on her food, but by the time I got to the table she was ok, she held out her tender grilled chicken sandwich.

“I can’t eat that.” My mom said taking a drink from the soda I had just brought to her.

I looked at the tender grilled chicken sandwich and there was nothing that was tenderly grilled about this piece of chicken. This piece of chicken looked like it had lived a hard life and met it’s death at the wrong end of a flame thrower. The edges were black and crispy, not fried to perfection crispy, but crumble between your fingers like charcoal crispy.

“I didn’t know Burger King had blackened Cajun chicken” I said.

I looked closer at the chicken and I swear I saw dry crack lines running all over it - much like you see in those National Geographic pictures of the desert during a bad drought.

As I was walking back up the counter I hear the young girl say, “oh no” because they had just helped another customer with what I believe was the same problem. I didn’t have to say anything, I just showed the sandwich and she showed it to the manager who immediately started to say something in Spanish to the person making them in the back.

I asked the manager, “Why would you even serve something that looked that?“ She didn’t say anything. She just shrugged her shoulders and smiled a weird smile that was actually a bit scary, so I moved away from her and I told the counter girl that I didn’t want another tender grilled sandwich, I just wanted a regular burger with mustard instead. She switched them out and as I stood there I realized that the tender grilled chicken was more than just the regular sandwich so I asked for the difference. I could tell that the counter girl was getting a little impatient but she didn’t say anything, she figured out the difference and gave it to me.

“I’m so sorry, “ Megan said. “I recommended the sandwich and then they give her this.”

I started to laugh because I had forgotten that she had recommended the tender grilled sandwich, “Yeah, you did recommend it. I‘m going to remind her that you did.” I said laughing even more because the whole situation just seemed funny to me.

“I swear in the whole six months that I’ve been here they have always been very good.” She said.

“I believe you.” I said, “but I’m still going to remind her you recommended it.” we both laughed at that.

The burger was good, the food in general was good and the counter girl even asked if everything was ok - something that I feel the manager should have done, but it didn’t matter - things were good…at least for the moment.

As we were getting the kids ready to go I went to get our ghetto refills, you know, that last refill that you don’t drink at the place but take with you, and I thought it was funny that one of the Burger King employees was also up there getting his ghetto refill before heading home at the end of this shift. He got a Sprite.

We got our mess cleaned up and walked out the side door when we see the Burger King employee throw his drink out his car window, splashing it against the side of my dad‘s Trailblazer. Sprite flew across the windows and down the side of out truck. Sprite was all over the tires, the door and the windows.

“Hey!” My mom yelled as the Burger King employee pulled out and raced out of the parking lot.

I went back to Megan who looked at me with a “Oh God, now what happened” look and I told her that I wanted the name of the employee who had just left.

“you mean Jose?” she asked.

“I don’t know” I said, “he’s an older guy who had a backpack. He just left and he threw his drink against my truck. It’s on the windows and down the side.” I was getting frustrated at this point. “You know what, just let me talk to the manager.”

The counter girl called the woman with the scary smile over and I told her what had happened. She said, “well, I’ll talk to Jose tomorrow.”

I was standing there kind of shocked because the manager didn’t even seem to be bothered by the fact that one of her employees had just thrown a cup of soda across a customer’s car - it was almost as if this was a daily occurrence. She didn’t even bother to say she was sorry about the incident. She just kind of brushed me off as if my problems didn’t matter.

“Well, what’s that going to do for me? I have a truck that splashed with soda that you‘re employee threw. The cup is still out there on the floor if you want to go see it.” She did her scary smile and shrugging of shoulders but didn’t say anything. At that moment I didn’t even know if she understood what I was saying. Then a ray of light hit her and she had an epiphany, she called over a young girl who was cleaning the restaurant and asked her to go outside and look at the truck. The girl came out and when she saw the truck simply said, “Oh my. Let me go get a rag and I can clean your windows and I‘ll call Jose.” She had a cordless phone with her and she did call Jose. It was a one sided conversation but it went something like “Jose, is that you? Why did you throw your drink on the customer’s car. Yes you did, they saw you and I’m looking at the mess right now. You were parked in the middle spot and you threw your drink on the customer’s car. Why did you do that? Jose? Jose?” The girl looked at the phone and then looked at us. “He hung up on me.” She then went inside got two, blue dry rags and began to clean the windows. My mom gave her some wipes that she always carries for the kids so she could wipe the windows down.

“Grandma, why did that man throw his drink on Grandpa’s truck?” My nephew asked.

“I don’t know.” My mom said. “Maybe he had a long, hard day and he was taking his frustrations out on the truck.”

“He’s a mean old man,” my niece said, “I don’t want to eat here anymore.”

“Me either” my nephew agreed.

“I don’t think we have to worry about that. We won’t be coming here anymore.” My mom said.

The girl cleaning the window apologized.

I went inside and asked the counter girl, Megan for the district manager’s numbers. She called over the manager and said, “He still want’s the district’s manager’s number.”

The manager yelled at her, “I’m busy right now! He’s going to have to wait!” she was helping with the drive through window and apparently too busy to write down the number for me. She then turned to the other employee in the back and began speaking in Spanish. It was weird because I felt like I had stepped into a Mexian movie where everyone was over dramatic and only spoke Spainish. I didn’t know what they were talking about but I felt like they were talking about me and the situation because I did hear her mention Jose. I feel that as a manager she should have shown more concern about my problems and wether or not she was talking about me, she should not have turned to her employees and talke to them in Spainish. I didn’t say anything about that because I already figured out that the counter girl, Megan was a much better manager than the actual manager was and that was something I was going to let the district manager know.

The counter girl, Megan said she was sorry but that they don’t post the district manager’s number anymore - now they keep it in the manager’s office and she’s not allowed in the manager’s office. She said she would get it for me but if they found out she had been in the manager’s office she would be in trouble.

I told it was ok and I would wait.

As the time progressed we found out that Jose was transferred from another Burger King and that most of the employees don’t like working with him because he falls asleep on the job. They said that he’ll go off on his break and falls asleep, so everyone has to take up his slack. The manager’s daughter, who was the employee that cleaned our windows, also said that they’ve been trying to get rid of him but the district manager won’t allow them to because he’s a transfer from another Burger King. She also said that one of the cooks had just come back from vacation and has not been really wanting to work, so she’s been cooking all the food early in the morning and warming it up throughout the day. She said that the chicken we had was made early that morning and just warmed when we ordered it at approximately 8:15 pm.

Finally after a good fifteen minutes of standing at the counter I get the district manager’s number. The only reason I got it was because the manager’s daughter went into the office to get it for me. “You know,” I told Megan “A burnt chicken sandwich can pass, but when employees throw cups of soda at your truck then you have to do something. If he does something like this to someone‘s auto that’s parked in front of the place, it makes you wonder what he does back there to people’s food when he‘s mad or tired? ”

“I know I don’t blame you.” She says.

“What gets me is that there’s a trash can less than ten feet away from where he parked. He had to walk right by it to get to his car. He could have thrown his cup in there, but he was too lazy to do that. Being an employee you would think you‘d want to keep your place nice and clean not throw trash all over the parking lot”

“I’m sorry” The thing that impressed me about the counter girl, Megan is that she was so apologetic and friendly throughout the whole situation and helped me more than the manager actually did.

“When my nephew and niece shouted, ‘We want to eat BK!’ this was not the way I expected the night to go.” I told the counter girl.

“I’m sorry.” Megan said.