A Road Trip Story

The beauty of road trips is the chance to see new and different parts of the country and the experiences that come along the way. This creates the opportunity for some unique stories. Our road trip brought us to the Burger King in Meridian, Mississippi at 8:30 a.m. CT.

After leaving Tyler at 2:15 a.m. and fresh off 3 Rock Star Energy drinks, Dusty needed to get some food into his empty stomach. Due to a lack of sleep, lack of food and said energy drinks, he was beginning to feel quite strange. Food was the obvious solution. Tom Tom directed us to this lovely, customer service oriented Burger King. At first we thought it was closed, but we went ahead and drove around to the back. As we pulled in the drive through, a petite, older African American man was scrubbing the drive through pavement. As stated, there were no other customers in the drive through line continuously disrupting him. There was no one even in sight. This Burger King looked deserted. However, the gentleman proceeded to scrub the pavement for several minutes, right in front of the speaker where you place your order. We waited patiently for him to finish this obviously important task.

We pulled up to the speaker. The friendly woman said, “Yeah. Go ahead.”

Dusty responded, “I would like a #1 and a breakfast bowl.”

She said, “Whadda ya want to drank?”

“Orange Juice.”

“$7.38”

We pulled our car around the corner to find the nice man scrubbing the pavement in front of the window. We waited again.

We pulled up to the window and waited for the lady to come to the window. She finally did and Dusty handed her our debit card. After about 5 minutes, Dusty looked at me and said, “I don’t know where she went with my card, but she took it somewhere.”

She finally returned. “Can ya pull around? I’ll bring it to you. Ya want ketchup?”

“Yes, please.”

We pulled our car around and parked next to an early 80’s, Powerade Blue Chrysler Sedan with “Powerade” stamped across the side. I decided I would run in and use the restroom while we waited. Please note, the door was unlocked at this time. When I got back to the car, Dusty still didn’t have his food.

A couple minutes later, the lady walked out. I rolled down my window and she said, “I thought you were gonna wait for yo food when ya came in.”

Ummm, I responded - “sorry?”

We sat there a few minutes while Dusty ate. He pulled out his breakfast bowl and realized there wasn’t a fork in the bag. He got out of the car and walked to the door. It was locked. The lady came to the door and he said, “Could I please get a fork?”

“Mmmm hmmm.”, with lots of attitude.

Dusty came back to the car and we looked at each other and laughed. Five minutes later, the same friendly lady walked outside and got in the Powerade blue car. She started backing up. Dusty had already put our car in reverse, but was waiting for her to pull out first. She honked her horn at him, obviously thinking he was trying to back into her. I mean, his reverse lights were on but we hadn’t moved. I guess she thought it was a fair assumption.

I’m not sure who was left in the Burger King. We only saw one other employee plus the pavement scrubber when we went in. The doors had been locked. The sign said 24 hours. There were no other customers. We wondered if it was a coincidence that the McDonald’s and Hardee’s surrounding this particular Burger King were packed full of people? Was this due in part to the lack of customer service? Or the fact that they lock the customers out? Or the fact that it’s necessary to scrub the drive through while customers are trying to order food?

I’m not sure which, but next time Tom Tom gives us a list of nearby restaurants, I think we’ll opt for Hardee’s, just in case.