CHOOSE RANT

Title:   Mr. Furious vs. Fast Food, round 2 Day:    August 14th, 1999 Author:  Ruiner				Ah, I now see the wisdom in it all. When I finally realize that I don't have anything to fume and vent about, something happens. I shouldn't complain like that I know. I mean, yeah even though I've title these pages as 'Rants', I don't feel that I'm always spewing venom. Sometimes I'm fairly introspective. But once again, common incompetence has reared it's head and I, as your guide, must inform you of it. You should remember that I recently went on a tirade about our wonderful fast food chain Wendy's. I was pissed about the specialty burgers and how I was treated at the counter. Well, as I admitted, I would not boycott the place since I like their sandwiches, especially compared to some other places. So we were recently returning from another town and it was sort've late at night. Nearly ten o'clock p.m., and given the archaic town I live in, many food joints would be shutting down that Monday night. But there was hope, because remember: "Wendy's Rules the Night". That's the slogan they've used recently with the late-night drive-thru's. And so we drive up and there are customers and employees I can see. And there's even the cute slogan on a sign on the window. Wendy's Rules the Night. We head to the drive-up and I glance at my watch. 10:01 p.m. Can you see where this is headed? "Sorry, we're closed." I was about to go ballistic, envisioning throwing a chair or car through the window, etc. My friend driving asked the woman, but she replied that they had just closed. Thinking quickly and sensing my anger, Dave drove off, saving the lives of all those employees. Wendy's Rules the Night? What the heck? What is their definition of night around here? I thought they closed at ten o'clock beforehand. What's the big change about this new slogan, other than common deceit? Perhaps ruling the night is a catchy way to say we stay open when the sun goes down. So now I'm forced to say "Die, Dave, Die!" every time I see one of his moronic commercials. Lucky for me I don't watch a lot of television. Argh! Okay, well let's switch gears a little with a different restaurant chain. Our friends at Subway. Last night, me and the boys met up at Subway. I was doing clothes at the parents, but I still needed to eat and I didn't want to mooch off them any more than I have already. So we head up to one of the two local Subway outlets. It's quick, it's cheap, and not too bad even if you have a selective pallet. As we step up to the door, there's a sign saying that they're completely out of white bread. What the hey? Well I know that I can eat wheat bread, but one of us won't so no need to make him endure this. But I'm curious so I step in to see if there's a possible change. I ask one of the gents inside the details and he gives me some halfhearted answer about the machines or something. I didn't pay a lot of attention at the time. So, I turn to my boys and debate the issue. There is another part of the chain on the other end of town, perhaps a ten minute ride. Not a problem to three guys such as us. So I turn back to the gent and ask him about his cohorts. He's not sure, but he says he'll call them. Very cool - actual customer service. He calls, and they tell him that yes they have white bread. Good deal, we're on our way. So we jaunt across town to the other Subway. There's no sign on the door, looks like we're doing good. We go in, start to select our food. And then, the female half of the pair working tells us that they're out of white bread. I turn to the guy and go "what?" He informs me that they too are out of bread. Quickly it turns to a scene from Mystery Men, with me cast in the role of Mr. Furious. ("Can't… control… anger! Temperature… rising!") and I actually say: "Then you call the guy at the other store and you figure out which one of you doesn't understand English!" I proceed to inform him that we had the guy call up and ask them specifically if they had white bread. The girl pipes up that they did at the time, but they just sold their last piece. Okay, so either they were just lying to me to cover up their ignorance, or when dude asked them about the bread, they only had two loaves (once again, making them ignorant and incompetent). Luckily I was with my partner in angry crime, Artman. He proceeded to tell them it was no wonder they slipped from the number one sandwich store to number four with crap like this. Bravo. I decided we didn't need this crap, and the store stunk anyway, so we'd leave. The bimbo offered to sell us the hard white bread if we wanted it that bad. I didn't even dignify her with an answer. It wasn't so much the bread. It was the premise of the whole thing. You see, that guy at the other store went out of his way to satisfy us, calling the other store so we didn't ride out there for nothing, which is just what we did. I know these people work crap jobs, underpaid for dealing with the public. But does that mean they are stripped of all intelligence when it comes to such work? Later, after eating a decent meal (thank you American Hero!) and calming down, I went back to the first Subway in question. No, I did not go McDonald's-Shooting-Spree crazy on them. I just merely wanted to ask the first gent I talked to what the problem was. Apparently someone handling affairs during the day wasn't bright enough to bake white bread for the night. They cooked a plenty of wheat, but this town isn't interested in wheat on a whole. Remember we're a fairly backwoods Southern town. He was flabbergasted that they told him one thing and actually had another. He did tell me that he had called the man who manages both stores and there was going to be some butt-chewing soon. Good, I feel slightly vindicated. I just mainly wanted to discover if the problem was something beyond their control or just incompetence. Unfortunately my suspicions proved true. So the end results of this war? Well, I'll probably boycott these stores since we have other good sandwich shops, not to mention I can fix decent ones on my own if the deli stays open long enough for a working stiff like me to buy some. (Calm…down. Temperature… dropping.) I guess it's all an interesting way for me to lose some weight and work on what I eat. I'll just get extremely mad at all the fast food chains and become a vegetarian or something. Wouldn't that be cool? B.Mooney