I am not a fan of fast food except for two items, I love McDonald’s Diet Coke and I am a fan of fast food salads. Almost any of the major fast food joints have decent salads these days, but Sonic and McDonald’s are my favorites. McD’s makes a southwest salad with grilled chicken that is filling, healthy and delicious. Unfortunately, ordering it has become a bit of a communication skills challenge. The same problem occurs every time I visit if one of two Hispanic women are working the drive thru window. They are friendly and seem perfectly capable and efficient except for one little detail, they can never understand me when I say “tortilla.”
This shouldn’t be a huge problem and it wasn’t . . . at first. As the year has passed, however, with the exact same problem cropping up in the exact same way over the exact same word, I’ve become both perplexed and annoyed. I am not one of those people that expect those in the U.S. to instantly or always speak English. I am guilty of traveling all over the world without adequate language skills and I am fine with America being a melting pot. Most of the world is exposed to more than one language. We are very isolated here both by geography and our attitudes. We believe people should speak English in the states and while I’m all for learning the language of the country you reside in, I am also aware that even in Charlotte, NC there are largely Hispanic communities in which you can be either a natural born citizen or immigrant and still have an accent and speak solely your natural language around close family and friends. I do not care that they are Hispanic, have accents and may not be 100% fluent, nor do I believe we should pass some ridiculous and bigoted English as our national language amendment. It’s bullshit and prejudiced.
My order, when visit McDonald’s is never-changing: Large Diet Coke, easy on the ice and a Southwest Grilled Chicken Salad with no tortillas and no dressing. Despite their thick Spanish accents and my mid-west, not a speck of an accent English, we have no problems understanding one another. They get it, the “easy on the ice” part doesn’t throw them, “no dressing” is understood and my diction does not give them trouble. It is a perfectly ordinary visit to a fast food joint except for the “no tortillas” part. Every damn time, they make me repeat this over and over until they finally give up and ask me to pull around, at which point I again repeat it over and over before launching into gestures meant to demonstrate the scattering of fried tortilla strips on a salad and the hand gestures universally regarded as meaning “no.” McDonald’s and these two, perfectly nice women, have forced me to commit odd, charades-like antics in my car and I’m beginning to think they’re doing it on purpose.
Is it possible, that our nation’s obsession with forcing everyone who crosses our borders to speak English is inspiring them to exact revenge? How else to explain that two Hispanic women understand every word out of my mouth except “no,” which is pretty much the same in every Westernized language and “tortilla” which IS A SPANISH WORD?!? Are they fucking with me? They get “easy on the ice” but not “no tortilla”? I don’t mumble, I pronounce tortilla correctly, I think they’re just fucking with me! It’s become a downer when I go because I know I will end up doing car charades to order my salad and I’m pretty sure they just keep me going until they can no longer hide their laughter. I bet I’m the joke at their dinner tables the days that I come through.
So can we all please agree that it should not be an ordeal for me to order a damn fast food salad and stop making people feel ostracized for not speaking like they grew up in Anytown, USA? Maybe if we lighten up on arbitrary reflections of patriotism like what language we speak the ladies at McD’s will stop punishing me. I really just want my salad. It’s healthy, I don’t eat the cheese and I try to get it without the fried tortilla strips and I use salsa for salad dressing. I like my salad, I want my salad, I just don’t want the 2-3 minute antics required for me to order it. I would be completely okay with it if they did not understand something else I was saying. I’m pretty sure they are immigrants, so I don’t blame them for not being as fluent as I am, I was raised in Indiana after all which is the only state without an accent, I love culture and languages and differences. I don’t care what race or ethnic background or accent my drive-thru person has, I just want to order a damn salad in less than three minutes. If they were confused by anything else I said, I’d be fine, I mean my French is atrocious and I’m sure when I visit France no one will have any idea what the hell I’m talking about, but it’s a SPANISH WORD and that is what they don’t understand! Please McDonald’s just stop putting fried tortillas on your otherwise healthy salad so I can stop the insanity.
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