Using the Drive-thru? Don't Be Rude

A friend of mine was ranting a while back about the way little things can really get under your skin. She began with a rant about people that use the drive through at fast food restaurants and then place huge orders which take 15 minutes to complete. “It’s not okay to do that,” she said, “and people should know better.”
She went on to complain about people who stick their kids in these Hummer sized shopping carts provided by the store and then take up the entire aisle while they shop at a snails pace. Actually that was the second time in a week I heard a complaint about shopping carts. Another friend suggested I devote an entire column to people that don’t know how to drive shopping carts. He is annoyed with people that don’t watch where they are going. They slam (not bump) into you rounding the corner and don’t even say excuse me, he complained.
You might think we have much bigger fish to fry these days. The economy has tanked. There’s global warming, terrorism and out of control healthcare spending to contend with. These are big problems but not many of us are equipped to provide solutions to them. We’re lucky if we can grasp the nature of problems of such magnitude. While these major issues will surely haunt us in the macro, they don’t always have a measurable impact on our day to day lives.
Rudeness however, is another matter. We know it when we see it. No explanation required. No complicated formulas to study. Indeed, careless cart driving and thoughtless hogging of the drive thru lanes shouldn’t be tolerated. If only we could be certain that we’re dealing with rudeness. After all, being rude is a conscious and deliberate act.
There’s no doubt that someone using the drive through to place multiple and large orders could be called rude if you accept the premise that the drive through window is designed for the quick order like a cup of coffee or a hamburger and a shake. The thing is restaurants never make that point. In fact the lighted sign next to the intercom has every menu item including combo options. Is this not a license to order whatever you like? To make matters worse, the lettering is small and poorly organized. And, I’ll bet you’ve never heard a fast food restaurant employee say, “Oh that order is too large to place here. You’ll have to come inside.”
It would certainly be courteous to opt for parking your car and going into the restaurant but people probably feel like they’re saving lots of time by using the drive thru. After all wasn’t that why it was invented?
What about slow shoppers and careless cart drivers? Are they just blatantly rude? Nah. Again, the grocery stores encourage this behavior by making the kiddy ride-along carts huge and heavy. This forces Moms to slow down, giving them more time to peruse the items on the shelves. Other shoppers, namely adults in a hurry, are forced to slow down too. If they’re not jabbering on their cell phones, what choice do they have but to bite their lips and add a box of cookies they know they want but swore they wouldn’t buy?
Careless cart drivers are victims too. Big-box stores offer just one kind of shopping cart. It’s the heavy duty big rig. There’s a reason why drivers of on the road big rig trucks are required to go to school to learn to handle them. Important things like turning radius and breaking distance are core parts of the curriculum in these schools.
Big-box retail stores, where most of these tragic bumper car like incidents occur, are only interested in whether you have a valid membership card. They assume you can handle their carts. They never give a thought to the laws of physics that come into play when you’re pushing a cart laden down with number ten cans of peanut butter. Talk about breaking distance. And, who can control a full shopping cart when one of the wheels is bent, wobbly or even missing? No wonder there are accidents.
Of course my friends will say that I’ve missed the point…again. They just want people to use common sense. Failing that, simple courtesy will do. They might argue that just because businesses encourage bad behavior doesn’t make it all right. A civilized society depends on courteous behavior. Point well taken. Still, I’ll keep my eyes open for the big rigs just in case.

Copyright 2008 Len Serafino. All rights reserved.