The best chicken sandwich I’ve ever had

It started badly.

I was out running errands on a rainy Saturday afternoon around one and I hadn’t eaten lunch yet – which is dangerously late for me.  Or rather, dangerous for the people around me that dare to stand between me and food.

My travels took me near a Wendy’s and I stopped in and went up to the counter. 

(Note to Wendy’s – consider adding a kiosk.  Not “only a kiosk”, but as an option. Just a thought.)

There was one guy in front of me and he apparently had never ordered food at a fast food place – in that he did not move out of the way when he was done.  The clerk and I had to work around him.   And in the case of the clerk, I use the term “work” loosely.

I usually get a Number One Single Combo with Lettuce Only, No Cheese (™).  Which sounds easy, but on a good day I’ve got only about a 40% chance they’ll get it right.   It looked a little lot chaotic in the kitchen and I decided to go just a little simpler. 

Spicy Chicken Sandwich – Lettuce Only.

Even easier, right?  “Have it your way” – wait, that was Burger King…

Anyway, I got my receipt and confirmed the order was entered correctly. It was  – and that’s literally half the battle right there.

I get my drink from the machine and go back to the counter and wait. 

And wait.

The clerk put the fries on the tray in front of me and I had high hopes that my sandwich would be shortly on the way.  

Instead, he proceeds to spend a great deal of time and concentration placing stickers on the bags for the pick-up orders.  He doesn’t wait on anyone else, nor does he acknowledge any of the delivery drivers.

I continue to wait.  

The shift-lead, I think, pulls the clerk from the counter to instead work on the fryer.  The woman who was working on the fryer comes up to the front and looks at the fries rapidly cooling on the tray.  I step forward and say,

“I’m just waiting on a Spicy Chicken, Lettuce Only”

I’m pretty sure she heard me, but there was no reaction from her. Not a glance my way or a quickening of her pulse.  If there had been a cranial scanner nearby it would have registered not a single wave.  No gamma, no alpha, not even a blip of beta. 

Not who I would have put at the front to interact with say, I dunno, customers – but there she is and there we go. 

She proceeds to take the order from someone who has navigated the cluster of delivery drivers crowding the lobby – which goes badly since the woman ordering simply refuses to SPEAK. UP!

(I wanted to pull her aside and stridently lecture her for half an hour on how that isn’t cute or sweet or funny or whatever else she was trying to do.  It’s a noisy restaurant and if you have to shout to be heard, then you had better shout, missy. If you know what’s good for you. )

I check my receipt and my watch and then do the math.  Fifteen minutes have passed since I placed my order. 

Sigh.

Then, I hear the shift-lead say to the woman at the front, “Are you waiting on a Spicy Chicken?”

She doesn’t confirm, but he takes that as a “Yes” somehow and my heart skips a beat.

Then, he picks up the cold fries off the tray and tosses them out – replacing them with a fresh order.

My estimation of this guy – and my hopes – skyrocket.

An unknowable amount of time later (time had become meaningless), a sandwich is handed to Little Miss Loquacious – who places it on the tray and pushes it towards me.

“Here you go,” she says and immediately forgets that I have ever existed.  

(For those of you that have been reading carefully, you’ll note that the shift-lead said, “Spicy Chicken” and not “Spicy Chicken, Lettuce Only,” Which will soon be important to the story, dear reader. )

I get to a table and have a seat and sure enough – the sandwich includes tomato and mayo.  The tomato is easy enough to dismiss, but the mayo was everywhere.  No scraping that off – there was an “extravagance of mayo”.

I sigh, marshall my defenses and gird my loins, and go back up to the counter with the offending sandwich. 

Getting the attention of LML is no easy task, but I finally do and explain the problem – ready with my receipt, should proof of their folly be needed.  She takes the sandwich to the shift-lead and says something to him. 

And I begin waiting again – apparently dumped back into the queue with the delivery drivers who are almost certain by this point to not get ANY kind of tip.

Finally, LML gets the new sandwich and hands it to me with the now familiar, “Here you go,” and immediate dismissal.  I consider pinching myself to confirm I haven’t been banished to the shadow realms, but I instead go back to the table and sit down.  I open the sandwich and it’s correct – to my relief and surprise – and I take my first bite.

And I am here to tell you now that it was the best god-damn chicken sandwich of my life. 

The chicken was hot and spicy, juicy and full of flavor.  The bun had been warmed to a perfect temperature and was soft and yielding – like a cloud.  The lettuce was crisp and fresh with a delightful crunch. It might well have been harvested only moments before.

And for those of you thinking it was just a sandwich –  you weren’t there and you could not know.  That chicken had an amazing life and met its end peacefully and with a song in its heart. I knew this as surely has I knew my own name.

Each bite was so good, I had to take breaks and slow myself down by working on the merely adequate (but hot)  french fries.  The return to that sandwich and each subsequent bite was bliss.

I left one bite remaining while I finished up my fries – saving it for dessert, as it were. 

And, with regret, I then finished that most perfect of Spicy Chicken, Lettuce Only sandwiches.  

I sat for a moment in that Wendy’s, contemplating what I had just experienced and how it had changed me.

I looked over at the counter to see if I could trouble them for a moment and share my experience back with them. I felt we had been through something together and wondered if I could convey to them what it all meant and how we were now all connected.

But, the lobby was still full of increasingly angry drivers and impatient customers.  I instead forlornly wadded up the now empty wrapper and took my trash to the bin like an adult. 

As I walked to my car, I wondered at the cosmic rebalancing I had witnessed.  The awful customer service and righteous Spicy Chicken Sandwich, Lettuce Only.   A great disservice had been done to me, but this time the fates themselves had intervened. 

I went on with my errands a different man than when I started  – knowing in my heart that no sandwich would ever compare, and stealing myself for a future of disappointment. 

Better to have loved and lost, than never loved at all.