Mrs. Hillbilly Mom has a problem. A problem with those clear plastic bins that Burger King uses to foist the food upon their patrons. And the similar bin used to accept payment.
Have you been to Burger King over the past year? Only the drive-thru is open. You order at a speaker, drive around to the first window, and make payment.
I am no stranger to Burger King. I remember the salad days, when you could even EAT INSIDE. And when the drive-thru worker reached out a hand and took your payment, then extended their hand again with your receipt and change. OH MY GOSH! That would seem terribly inappropriate to young 'uns who came of drive-thru age during 2020.
NOW the window worker extends a clear plastic bin out the window. It looks like a bin for produce in the bottom of your refrigerator, only smaller. Maybe 6 inches by 4 inches. You drop in your money or card, and Window Worker pulls it back in, closing the window so your cooties don't get in. THEN, after pawing your card, or digging your change out of the cash register, Window Worker drops your cash, or your card shrouded in the receipt, into the plastic bin, opens the window, and proffers it to you. It's your job to dig your money or card out of the plastic bin as it wavers in the Window Worker's hand.
WHAT IS THE REASON FOR THIS CHARADE?
The Window Worker wears gloves. Not spiffy, form-fitting blue or green latex gloves like a surgeon might wear to remove your appendix, or a nurse might wear to draw your blood. No. These are clear plastic gloves, kind of baggy, like the gloves that come with a hair color kit. The ones that used to be clear, but are sometimes black now. At least in L'Oreal.
Anyhoo... the Window Worker does not change gloves between customers. The same gloves are likely worn all shift. So I get the cooties that were on the hands of the customers ahead of me all shift so far, and the people who come after me get MY cooties.
WHAT GOOD IS THAT BIN?
The bin has cooties smeared all over it from customers' hands and money and cards, and the Window Worker's gloves. How is this helping?
At the food window, the Food Hander has a bigger bin. Maybe 12 inches by 9 inches. Big enough to put in two large sodas, and a couple of food bags. The Food Hander also wears those baggy clear gloves. Which she uses to fold down the top of your bag, slap on the lid of your soda, and put them in the bin while handing you paper-wrapped straws if she forgets to put them in the bag or bin.
MAYBE this Food Hander's gloves are okay. Clean enough, if all they touch is the food and sodas inside, and nothing from the customer. I just don't get the bins. I don't ever recall touching a Food Hander's hands when taking a bag or cup out of them as they were passed through the window. I'd think they'd be just as sanitary handing the food directly out the window, rather than using the bin. If they touch a customer, they can put on new gloves.
Seriously. I feel bad for those little ladies extending the bin, with my two large sodas in the front, and the bag of food behind them. Imagine standing there for 8 hours, holding a bin out in front of you, leaning through the window to far-parkers. That's got to hurt their back. I hope they wear those black support thingies like the Devil's Playground workers pulling pallets laden with foodstuffs around the floor.
I just don't get the bin.
7 comments:
I do. It's all a mirage. It's something you see (a healthier, safer way to make a transaction), but it's really not there.
Lots of people don't think (at all), so those kinds of thoughts don't occur to them.
Ssssh. Don't talk about it anymore. If we keep quiet about it, the charade can continue.
You're right, the bins make no sense at all. As for payment, why don't they have those tap-and-go card readers? Order your meal, tap the credit or debit card to the little screen and that's it, you've paid. Of course it only works on credit so even if you tap a debit card it still shows as credit on your statement eventually, so that could be a deterrent for some.
On the bright side, you've been buying burger meals all this time and none of you have gotten sick, so that's a plus, right?
Sioux,
I will keep quiet, BUT FIRST (said like Julie Chen on Big Brother)...
It's like the plexiglass partitions at the convenience stores. The VIRUS shoots out the nose of the cashier (only the NOSE, right, or else we could test with a swab in the mouth if the VIRUS was there) and strong-arms its way through the mask (maybe double or triple masks) and propels itself full-speed against the plexiglass, thus saving ME from getting it. No way would that VIRUS waft up and over the plexiglass, or through the money-slot at the bottom, or get on the card-reader machine, or on my scratchers that are laying inside the plexiglass barrier to be scanned.
Let the record show that my favorite cashier at the Gas Station Chicken Store has been sick THREE TIMES since last March. Sneezy/coughy sick, still came to work, mask sometimes worn, or under chin (not a requirement in the GSCS), and I never got sick. No-face-touch, handwashing, and especially NO FACE TOUCH. You can't tell me that my scratchers were immune from the VIRUS. If she had it, I carried it home on those scratchers. Imagine the ultraviolet-light glowing-blue smears all over T-Hoe and the Mansion from everything I touched.
Anyhoo... I'll shut up about that, and how the VIRUS knows not to come out of the smokers at the casino as they are allowed to sit maskless and light up. The VIRUS takes a break, too, and doesn't transmit itself during the smoke break. Nor come out of a sister eating a BBQ-sauce-less burger.
***
River,
If Burger King had those tap-and-go readers, they'd have to let the customer REACH A HAND INSIDE THEIR LAIR! Sweet Gummi Mary! I wonder how many BK workers just had heart palpitations when I typed that.
You just reminded me, I got those new cards from my credit card company a couple weeks ago. I need to activate them! Casey's now has the tap-and-go. So do the new scanners at Country Mart. I don't plan to use it that way, but I was resistant to the chip as well. If I want to use DEBIT, I DON'T want a credit card statement! But Office Max used to run it as a credit card, and my statement was the same as always. I bet they make money using it as a credit card, but not from a debit...
I've been buying burgers, and Dairy Queen, and Save A Lot and Country Mart groceries, and visiting the casino twice a month, and opening my mail without letting it sit three days on the kitchen table like some of Farmer H's friends... and none of us in the Mansion have been sick with any kind of virus. But super-hygienic Ex-Mayor got it. I'm pretty sure he doesn't go to Burger King. I suspect he's a face-toucher...
Super-hygienic people tend to over clean and kill off all their own natural bacteria so they have less resistance when a new bacteria or virus lands on them.
River,
I agree! Ex-Mayor is the only one who was wearing a mask and gloves way back on St. Patrick's Day week in 2020, when we were on a CasinoPalooza, with nothing shut down, no mask orders, and business as usual. He and Sis have a CLEANING LADY! They probably didn't let their kids eat mud pies, either, and the daughter has allergies! Not that I'm making fun. People can raise their own kids how they see fit. But I'm seeing parallels here to your statement.
I have a theory that the people who get sick the most were all first born. I remember thinking everything that touched my first born had to be boiled or cleaned with the utmost care. Not so much with the second one and by the time the twins came long I had decided a little dirt might be good for us! I just got a text from girl twin, she has Covid. Says she has no voice, I think she just doesn't want to talk.
Kathy,
I was careful with Genius, but The Pony kind of survived in spite of me. For a while I let him sleep in his carseat carrier thingy, with the little horseshoe pillow around his head. I'd set it on the couch, and I slept in the recliner. Just to keep an eye on him in the early days of bringing him home from my 1-DAY delivery stay.
One night I woke up to see The Pony with his head turned sideways, LICKING the head pillow! I put him in his crib after that! He also got away as a crawler. Once I found him under an overturned potted plant, afraid to move, covered in dirt. Another time he'd crawled into the pantry, pulled the door closed with his little fingers under the edge, and was sitting in the dark eating Oreos off the bottom shelf. He's been pretty healthy except for pneumonia twice as a child, and a strep infection, and an ear infection that took 6 months to cure. So really, not all that healthy!
Genius the first-born has been healthier. I'm a firstborn, no VIRUS. The Ex-Mayor is the baby of three, got the VIRUS. I think it comes down to face-touching. Or maybe licking a pillow...
I don't doubt that your girl has lost her voice, but maybe she's GLAD if she doesn't want to talk! I hope she rests and stays hydrated and gets better soon.
The one and only time I had the flu, in the late '80s, I couldn't talk. It was terrible! I couldn't yell at Farmer H, and I couldn't even answer the phone. People would hang up on me as my mouth pantomimed HELLO! HELLO! That's why I started getting a flu shot every year. To be heard!
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