Fritz the Cat
While I was working drive-thru at Taco Bell one dark, lost summer there was a guy who would drive through almost every night. I never really gave him a second thought until I accidentally scratched him once while handing back his change. As I felt the nail of my index finger scrape against his thumb, I let out a small “sorry” in a nervous, sing-song voice.
“The only time you’re allowed to scratch me like that is when we’re in bed together”.
I was separating out the nickels, dimes, and quarters I had thrown in the corner of the register during rush hour while he said that. I kept looking down at the register, laughing to myself while peering at him through the corner of my eye. Is this guy for real?
“Next window for your order.”
“You’re blushing.”
He was right, I was blushing. I could feel the bile churning in my stomach, but I was blushing.
“Next window please.”
“But you didn’t answer my question.”
“You didn’t ask me a question,” I replied politely, trying to will the blush off my cheeks as I shut the window in his face and walked away from the register.
We were in a lull so I was actually working both windows and had to run over to the second window to hand out the order.
“Miss me, sweetheart?”
His voice was a smooth as the kitchen grease underneath my feet. I was losing my balance. Not knowing how to respond, I plastered on my go-to grin and gave him the generic “have a great day”, though technically it was night. The whole thing just caught me really off guard.
I warned a coworker that she might have to hand out his order for me next time because he asked me to sleep with him and it kinda made me want to bathe in rubbing alcohol. “Ya, no problem. He’s like twice your age, old enough to be your father. His hair line is receding, he’s as big as a house, and he’s always wearing the same exact shirt. That’s just really creepy. But I got your back.”
Two beef combo burritos no beans or onions add rice, one cheesy bacon potato burrito, and a medium diet coke no ice. He ordered the exact same thing every night. “No beans or onions add rice,” said the disembodied voice over the speaker, and I knew it was him. “Add rice… no ice”. Those words haunted me.
At the window, I start to notice how he ends every sentence with darling or sweetheart. I notice how he notices when I forget my name tag, which usually sits slightly above my chest. I don’t have much to see, but he’s looking.
“Your co-worker at the first window has a funny name.”
“Uh, really?”
“It sounds like another word”.
“Yenis,” I say out loud and it takes me all of half a second to see where he’s going.
“If you replace the Y with a—“
“Yeah, I got it thanks,” and shut the window on him yet again. I walk away from the window to get a rag from a bucket under the counter and I notice that he’s lingered to watch me as I bend down to retrieve it and wring it out.
Though I knew his order by heart, I got progressively worse at ringing up his complicated burritos. I have to remind myself to take deep breaths as the queue lessened and his car slowly crept its way from the ordering screen to my window. Don’t panic.
It’s almost like he fell straight out of a comic book. Imagine R. Crumb’s most skeezy comic strip character, feline or not. Skeezy, yes, but oddly amusing. I couldn’t tell if I was repulsed or aroused… or both. To be fair, I didn’t exactly have the right to be repulsed. I tend to give off a sometimes-when-I-get-nervous -I-put-my-fingers-under-my-arms-and-then-smell-them-Molly-Shannon-superstar-sort of vibe. So the only guy who’s ever asked me out on a date visits the drive-thru at Taco Bell every night and orders the same exact thing wearing the same exact Hawaiian shirt. That shirt is probably the only thing made in his size so he has a closet full of them at home and I don’t even know if he actually has the use of his legs. But to be fair, I work at Taco Bell every night and take the same exact orders while wearing the same exact uniform. Well then, maybe this summer my life can finally resemble a Chuck Palahniuk novel (and Palahniuk is a misogynist). As if being wanted was enough to make me want him back. DEAR GOD, is it? I hope not.
“So how many fast food joints do you troll looking to pick–up cashiers who hate themselves?”
“Not many, I promise.”
“And have you ever succeeded?”
“You tell me.”
