Saturday, December 05, 2009

7-Eleven Zero

When I work the evening shift I like to make a trip to the nearby 7-11 at around supper time. I usually just get a diet coke, but sometimes I make the unfortunate decision to buy food as well. Tonight was just such an occasion.

I pulled up to 7-Eleven this evening to see the usual scenario. Two staff members were outside smoking, leaving only one inside to deal with a line of customers. I held my breath through the cloud of smoke and made my way inside. I got my diet coke and decided I was a little bit hungry. I peeked inside their display case of various deep-fried foods. For some reason the onion rings looked good to me, but I wasn’t willing to eat many of them. I hoped that they had a small size I could order.

The line was moving slowly, since the other two clerks were still outside. They appeared to be done smoking, so I assumed they were talking about how unique they were for having eyebrow and lip rings. Once I finally got to the front I asked the clerk, “What sizes do your onion rings come in?”

According to his nametag, his name was Myles. Myles looked at me like I had just asked the stupidest question he had ever heard. He shrugged, frowned, scowled, shook his head, and in his best Napoleon Dynamite voice he said, “Uuuh… they come in assorted sizes?” His statement-spoken-as-a-question had that tone of teenage superiority that indicated he felt he just answered something that was plainly obvious.

Not yet knowing why he thought I was so stupid, I ignored the tone and all of his theatrical facial expression and asked, “Ok… so do they come in small?”

With audible disdain Myles sighed loudly and said, “…j-sa-sec.” He turned and plodded with Frankenstein-like enthusiasm to the display case. He picked up a pair of tongs, opened the display case door, then started to do something in there. The display case was on the opposite side of the counter and his back was to me, so I didn’t know what he was doing, but he appeared to be sorting the onion rings. He paused and turned around and said, “How small do you want them?” Then he held up the tongs and pinched between them was a wee tiny onion ring. “This size?”

Realizing the weird way he misinterpreted my request I tried to explain away the confusion. I said, “I wanted a small order of onion rings, not an order of small onion rings.” Myles looked very confused and after a few seconds of frowning he tried to say ‘What?’ but it came out as “Wut?”

I didn’t know how to explain this so that he’d understand, so I just backed off entirely.
“Nevermind what I said before. Just give me a regular order of onion rings.”

I ended up getting my onion rings and was even able to return to my office within my break. I did get way more than I wanted to eat. There were well over a dozen in that bag, and I ate them all.
At least they were small.