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An afternoon at Wendys

Its one of those afternoons when I had gone out to eat. I was at Wendys. Its kind of ‘okay’ place – not as good as Subway and Burger King, but far far better than McDonalds. There is a pretty long queue. As I wait for my turn, I take a look at the wall displaying the different varieties of non-veg burgers, that I will never be trying. I reach towards the counter and I suddenly see this lady.

Our eyes meet for a moment and both of us have this “oh-no-not-this-person-again” expression on our faces. You cant figure out how old she is - she could be a teenager, a middle aged woman or an old lady. She looks like an alien who has missed her spaceship and failed to adjust to this strange planet. If you don’t believe in mutation, you have definitely not seen her!

I reach the counter, a little bit uncomfortable, knowing what exactly would happen in the next couple minutes.
“Hello, what would you like to have sir?”
“Hai, I’ll have a veggie burger, without meat”. Quite redundant information – ‘veggie burger’ and ‘without meat’, you might say!
“A wha’?”. She goes blank, as if I talked to her in Sanskrit.
“A veggie burger, you know, just the bread and vegetables in that, no meat”, I try to manage a smile.
“We don’t have a veggie burger”, she still seems to be wondering what kind of a person she was talking to.
“Umm, well, umm”, I feel totally embarrassed, not knowing how to explain her. Am I supposed to say ‘Give me a chicken burger without chicken’ ;)
Suddenly, she seemed to remember the burger they had prepared for me the last time.
“So, what do you want, just the bread?”
‘Yes, give me half a pound. Parcel!’, I said to myself. “Yes, the bread, and the vegetables”
“Tomato?”
“Yes”
“Onions?
“Yes”
“Pickles?”
“Yes”
“Cheese?”
“Yes”
“Thats it?”
“Yes, thank you”. What more could I ask for?
“Heres your bill sir, $3.20”, she gave me the bill. “Marie, a burger with just tomato, onions, cheese, pickles…no garlic”
I thought of telling her that garlic is not non-veg, but kept quiet.

As I waited for my burger, I started memorizing what I need to order the next time – “Gimme a burger with cheese, tomato, onions, pickles, and no meat…”

Comments

Venu said…
This was much easier.. I was in "jinan" (plz lookup this place in google). I think I was the first indian face they saw over there.. I was there for 1.5 months and I tried atleast 10-15 times to explain a veg burger...finally had to settle down to frech fries and corn :-(
Raghavendra D R said…
“Marie, a burger with just tomato, onions, cheese, pickles…no garlic”

I am amused as to how she came to the "no garlic" conclusion...
yavdho maTali oota maadirbeku Indiage bandhaga. :D
Vedu Joshi said…
hehe nangu hange agittappa.....
But i think we had a deal with "A Vegetarian burger without meat, without egg"
Anonymous said…
This is amazing stuff!-krupa

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