order Archives | Awkward List

Now, recently a topic that has come up in an awesome (or “ahhsome”) blog I’ve been following, Ahhsome Blog has been food! Or at least, that’s what stands out the most because I’m always hungry.

Why is this relevant? Well, I just left a very awkward situation at Carl’s Jr. For those of you who are wondering

“Who is Carl Jr.?”

You need a short explanation: Here in California, we have several awesome places that are pretty common around here. I lived in Colorado for a summer, and I was surprised that nobody knew what Jack in the Box was. All of these are burger places, one of the most famous ones around here is In-N-Out. One of my Texas friends decided to live in California for two reasons: the beach and In-N-Out. Carl’s Jr. is just another one of those places.

I was driving back home with my mom and dad from a nearby bookstore, and decided to stop for a late dinner at Carl’s Jr. From the window, my mom decided to order some enchiladas from the “Green Burrito” part of Carl’s Jr (yeah, there’s hybrid fast-food places here). I wanted to try the new turkey burgers, and my dad ordered a spicy chicken sandwich and a salad. Not a big order.

We paid for our food and we saw two number sign things waiting for us on the counter. Numbers 64 and 80. We took them and sat down. After about a minute, a woman brings two trays of food toward us and we began to reach for the fries when I realized that the salad wasn’t there. I looked for my burger and it was absent. But one thing I completely overlooked was that..

The order was huge.

We had:

Two orders of chicken tenders
Criss-cut fries
Onion rings
Big hamburger
A six dollar burger
Large fries
Small fries
Chili cheese fries

Of course, we were like ‘huh?’ And as we looked around, we spotted a family looking at us. One table away from us. They were sitting there quietly, glaring. Their food was in front of us. And we couldn’t eat it. It was torture. I tried looking away from the food. A ton of questions ran through my mind at that moment. Eventually I just got up and told the woman at the counter that they got our order wrong. The other family had asked for another order of the same thing.

We got what we actually ordered and set aside the other ones as we felt the stares from the other table. They were still waiting for their food. And in the meantime it was sitting in front of other people. Their food in front of us. While we were eating other things. They must have been angry.

The whole time were just sitting there, finishing our smaller order and soon it was time to face the fact. We had their food in front of us and they still hadn’t gotten their food.

Many solutions were suggested:

“Let’s tell them that we haven’t touched it and take it to them.”

“No, let’s just ask for a bag and take it to go.”

“Are you crazy? Let’s just dig in!”

“Let’s do the right thing and give it back to the restaurant. Even if they’re gonna –oh wait, they’re going to throw it away.”

We thought of all these things while the other people just sat there. Waiting. In the end, we asked the employees what we should do, and they gave us a bag and apologized for messing up. We walked away with the hungry family’s food in a bag. As they stared at us.

What would have done?