'Bred Crumbs

Grand Slam of Incompetence

We were out before dawn – which, in Sunday terms, means by 10 a.m. – scouting locations for The Point of Boxes, and the need for breakfast came upon us. And the closest thing around was a Denny's.

A poster by the door set forth the Denny's mission statement, leading off with "Immediately welcome customers with a warm smile," and I knew we were doomed. Sure enough, for several minutes, approximately no one arrived to put us on the waiting list, and no one also arrived to take the people already waiting to the several empty tables.

Finally, a woman at a counter saw us all, got an aggravated look on her face, and motioned a substantially old woman with Texas hair over toward the lectern containing the waiting list.

She stood there a few moments, dumbfounded. Then she picked up the list and squinted at it. She looked at the person standing closest to her, one of the waiting customers, and held the list out to him.

"Can you make out this name?" she said. "Is it Irene, or...?"

For the longest time, I held my head in my hand, wondering how once again I'd walked into a real-life comedy sketch. Then Robbie said what I was thinking.

"Should we go?"

We translated breakfast to lunch, and minutes later, we were at the happy land of In-N-Out, where people not only respond to newly arrived customers but actually come outside the building to take orders if the drive-through line is long, and where I don't really care whether I am welcomed with a warm smile, even though I usually am, because all I'm looking for is the food, soonish. Though I'd say the fact that the employees know what they're supposed to do, where they are, and how to read is a nice bonus.

·  ·  ·

That evening, while we're at our respective computers:

Me: Huh.

Robbie: What?

Me: Nickelodeon's going off the air for three hours one Saturday. "Part of their 'Let's Just Play' Campaign to get kids more physically active."

Robbie (who works for a TV station): Please. They just need to upgrade Master Control, so they found a name for it.

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