Thursday, May 19, 2011

Taco Bell & Rudeness

I've been in Florida for a few days with my family, visiting relatives. Yesterday we went to a beach. On our way back to my aunt's house, where we were staying, my sister and I got a Taco Bell craving. When we got to the restaurant, we walked in, and there was this divider wall between the door we came in and the counter, and my sister seemed to not know which way to go around. I said we should go to the right since that's how you usually go up to the counter in fast food restaurants. On the way up to the counter, I realized we were walking on a freshly-mopped floor, which made me hesitate for a second, but since we were already several steps into it, we just kept going. There was a "wet floor" sign around the corner which we had no way of seeing from where we came in. I am a janitor, and have been for years. Mopping is a big part of my job, and it's not that big of a deal when someone walks across a floor you just mopped. Floors are meant to be walked on. That's their purpose. And obviously they get dirty. That's what mopping is for. And whenever you mop the floor, it's only a matter of time before someone walks across it again. It's just the nature of the job. If you are bothered by it, you'll go crazy.

So anyway, there was a young girl (maybe a teenager, maybe in her early 20's) behind the cash register, and as we got closer to the counter and I smiled at her, the thought in my head was, "She's rather cute." Then she spoke.

"Why didn't you just go the other way?" It was a very rude tone, and it really caught me off guard. I wasn't quite sure how to respond. The phrase that came out of my mouth was "I... don't... know." She repeated her question, possibly with an even ruder tone than she originally said it. My sister and I both explained to her that in most restaurants there is a queue with ropes or railings, and you are supposed to enter at the right and exit on the other side where you pick up your food. In fact, this might have been the only time I've been in a Taco Bell where it wasn't set up like that. First she acted like she had absolutely no idea what we were talking about, and eventually she said "Well it's not like that." My sister said "Well obviously we can see that now." That shut her up.

We attempted to pick out what we wanted by looking up at the menu, but we could feel her staring daggers at us. I couldn't concentrate on the menu for more than 2 seconds at a time without my line of sight dropping back down to the girl behind the register. I was planning on still ordering food there, as I am pretty easygoing when it comes to the rudeness of strangers, but my sister was offended enough that she didn't even want to eat there. We walked back out the same way we came in, walking over the slightly less freshly-mopped floor.