Part 11 - Patience & Wendy's

It is an inward struggle that plagues me every so often when we stop to eat while on the road. That struggle is patience. Most of the things that bother me are truly silly. For example, the other day we stopped at a Wendy's in PA for lunch....
After getting out of the van, the first thing that typically takes place is we all pile into the restaurant and find a booth and a highchair. I don't know why, but often when we walk into the restaurant, there are looks of fear coming from the others already eating in their booths. It's like they are saying, "I hope they don't sit by us, because they have three small children.". Naturally, I feel like I need to accommodate them by sitting as far away from everybody. After being in the van for several hours in a row, the children are usually, well let's say, energetic.

My mind tends to think efficiency and a "get'r done" attitude when it comes to ordering, eating, and leaving, and this folks is where the mental friction begins.

On that particular day, Wendy's was very busy due to Memorial Day weekend. So leaving the family in the booth, I went up to the long line to wait to order our food.I don't know about you, but do you ever get into a situation when you are standing in line (maybe at the grocery store or department store) and the others in front or behind you are starting to verbalize their frustration. Stuff like, "Boy, they don't have their act together today!" or other phrases that I cannot express on this blog. Usually when I am in a line, I mentally try to think of it as preparation for Chile, since standing in lines is common. So trying not to give verbal or facial confirmation to the others comments, I stood there quietly and awkwardly.

While I have never worked in a fast food place, I am always interested in watching the crew behind the counter to see how they work together or not. That day at Wendy's, there must have been 12-15 people or so working in the back, but only two of them were actually doing anything productive. It was like everybody was looking at the green computer screen and thus they had a free pass to do nothing. It was like they couldn't do anything until the green screen told them to. Long story short, after 15 minutes of waiting, I ordered. Ben happened to come up to "help" bring back some of the drinks to our table. So I gave him Kristi's Sprite first. He put it on the table and came back to get another one. Meanwhile, Kaylee, who was sitting in her highchair, saw the drink on the table and reached out for it and knocked it over, spilling it everywhere.


At that moment, I arrived at the table with a overfilled tray of food. Kristi said that we needed to move since the table and booth were soaked and soon to be sticky. So we found a new booth. Setting the tray down, I was hoping to get the meal started, but Kristi said that Kaylee needed to have her diaper changed right away. So they left for the bathroom. I still needed to get all of the straws, napkins, and ketchup but I waited until Kristi came back since the boys wanted to devour their chicken nuggets. After she came back from the bathroom, I went to get all the rest of the stuff. I should have taken the tray since our family requires 7 ketchup cups (one for each of us except for Kristi...she is our resident Ketchup-o-holic and needs three!).
So when it was all said and done, we prayed and finally ate our now cold hamburgers and french fries on a clean table and with a clean diaper on Kaylee.

The whole process isn't done though.

The boys need to hit the restroom before we can leave, so that 10 minutes down the road they aren't saying, "Daddy, I need to go to the bathroom." They both are deathly afraid of toilets that flush by themselves, so that is a huge investigation once we all three pile into the stall. After that, they have to have help washing and drying their hands.

Bottom line is this...my patience has been tested and typically at wit's end. This is the stage of life that our family is in...eating out is not fast, not efficient, not quiet, and not clean. Whenever I see a Wendy's now, I think of our time in PA and the nightmare stop we had and laugh (although I wasn't laughing at the time). The next day, we were at another fast food place when I noticed a couple (in their 50's) getting a kick out of us getting our kids situated in the booth. With no introduction, I asked them, "Do you miss these days?". The lady said, "Yes, all of our children are out of the house now."

It was a funny thing, I was looking at them wishing I was them (sitting all quietly, eating HOT food, and reading the newspaper) and they were looking at us wishing that that stage of life hadn't gone by so quickly. Mental note to self...Cherish these moments when our children are with us.

So in conclusion...I have resigned to the fact that stops are what they are...stops. They are not NASCAR pit-stops. There is no such thing as eat and run. Our family makes messes for poor Wendy's workers to clean up. But at least we are making messes together as a family, while traveling on deputation. This is our life.

So whenever you drive by a Wendy's, pray for our family (and put patience at the top of the list).