"Pull forward please." What? Why?

Here's the deal, go to a fast food drive through. Order some grub. Pull up to the window. Pay your money, get your drink. Attendant asks you to pull forward, "We'll bring your stuff out."

This happens because they don't want to hold up the people behind you, and they don't want their counters to say somebody was at the window for 5 minutes while your french fries are cooking. I am sometimes happy about this, cause I get some nice hot fries. But lately it has come to my attention that this whole pull forward business is a bit ridiculous.

First off the drive thru is designed and built to be all about speed. If your fries aren't ready then that's a problem with the kitchen. They need to have some fries ready to go. Everything needs to be ready to go, so that all you do is throw it into a bag and wallah. This is the reason they have a counter inside, so that they are accountable for how many cars can get through the line during lunch.

Secondly if there is something slow in the kitchen, odds are the person behind me is going to have to wait too. So what are we solving here by moving somebody forward? So they can get another order in the system so that it can clog up even more?! That sounds ridiculous.

And lastly you're slowing things down even further when your attendants have to run ten orders out to the cars piled up in the lot. They are taking time to do run around, as opposed to simply waiting and handing things out that nice, little, bullet-proof window. Again, drive thru is designed to use that little window.

The point of the counter is to demonstrate to management how efficient their drive thru's are. By making you pull forward they are cheating their timers. They are cheating their jobs, making it look like they had a run of people go though 30 secs a piece when in actuality you had five very irritated people waiting in the parking lot for their food. That is not representing the effieciency of the drive thru at all. It is cheating. Pure out and out cheating, and the customer never knows it is happening.

This whole thing started a few weeks ago in San Diego. We went to Wendy's, three orders of spicy chicken sandwiches. We paid, got our drinks and were asked to pull forward. Pulled thru the drive, and because of the design of the drive thru, no car that was behind me could get out unless I pulled out of the drive thru. So I pulled out and was going to park, only this Wendy's sat in the middle of a huge shopping center. There wasn't a single parking spot, and about 15 cars trying to find one. So I pulled around and parked behind the handicapped spot, cause I figured they would be quick.

The guy who was behind me in the line of cars, came out of the thru shortly after I did, and he had been asked the same thing. So he circled around and parked behind me. At this point I am beginning to think this whole idea of pulling forward is a bit flawed. And the three of us were getting very irate. Then the handicapped people came out of the Wendy's and wanted to leave, so I had to move back, causing the guy behind me to move back as well, causing a traffic jam in the parking lot.

Finally, after what seemed like ten minutes, and after the handicapped party had left, our food came out. But I had to signal the attendant as to where I was parked (God forbid they should keep track of me and my order, again, what a drive thru is designed for). She came over and I told her what we ordered and she handed us the sack of Wendy's goodness.

The funny thing is, not a single car came out of the drive thru after the guy behind me did. So what on Earth is the point of this whole thing? Nobody got out of there any earlier than I did, because everybody was waiting for the same thing. So this whole idea of pulling forward to keep the line moving is a bit retarded in my opinion.

And then to top off this whole story, we were again getting food at a Wendy's this past weekend. And you know what, they asked me to pull forward. Here's the hysterical part, there was nobody behind me. And as I pulled forward and waited for them to bring out my food, nobody EVER came in line behind me. WHAT IS THE POINT OF THIS?!?!?! ARRRGHHH!!!

Maybe it's just Wendy's. Jack in the box does this also, but at least they have parking spots reserved for drive thru. I think next time somebody asks me to pull forward, I will just say "No thanks, I can wait here." I will let their counters get screwed up, because it will accurately show that they are lacking at service.

And if you want it to get any scarier, apparently this an arrestable offense in Florida. An elderly lady refused to pull forward and the cops arrested her. Read it here.

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Meteor hits Earth, call Bruce Willis.

So I watched Misery yesterday for the first time, and Oh. MY. GAAWWWD! That woman is a little bit psycho. Would do a Classic Monday with it, but it doesn't meet the stipulation of being older than 25 years. But instead I thought I'd share something equally terrifying... the end of the WORLD!! Scary stuff...



It's an animation of what could happen if a meteor 500KM in diameter crashed into the Pacific Ocean.

Better get the oil drillers ready.

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Riots erupt for "Next Top Model"

Here's the lowdown: smoking car stops on a street in New York. Directly beside the smoking car is thousands of wannabee models waiting to audition for "America's Next Top Model." Somebody yells, "It's gonna blow!" Pandemonium ensues.

I would laugh at the idea of a thousand screaming models, except for the fact that some people did get injured, and somebody could have been crushed. It just goes to show how dangerous a mob of desperate models can be.

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Human trafficking really happens?!

I saw the new movie Taken over the weekend. In short it was a great if not simple action & vengeance-filled movie; a great weekend movie. But what want to talk about is the primary subject of the film: human trafficking and more importantly sex trafficking.

In the film, Liam Neeson plays a man whose daughter is kidnapped while on a trip through Paris. And he discovers that she was taken as part of a human trafficking ring, and she was sold to a wealthy middle eastern leader, because of her virginity she was deemed more valuable.

OK, this sickens me, I find it incredibly hard to believe that this happens. So a researching I will go...

Here's some facts for you to munch on:

• Human Trafficking is lucrative and brings in between $5-$9 billion every year in revenue. Another source estimates it is a 42 billion dollar business globally.
• Forced prostitution, slave labor, and even harvesting organs for the black market are a few of the results of being trafficked.
• Approximately 600,000 to 820,000 people are trafficked across international borders every year. 70% are women or girls, 50% are minors.

There are lists and lists of statistics on this issue, but frankly it is too depressing to list them here. Simply understand, this is a tremendous problem. It is primarily isolated to Europe, Asia and Africa, but there are estimates that put about 14,000 people are trafficked into the US every year, against their will.

In Asia, women are regularly taken from poorer countries such as the Philippines and Thailand, and brought to wealthier nations such as Japan to work as prostitutes and strippers. However 80% of those go willingly, knowing they will be prostitutes. Which then leads to a very important question, is human trafficking OK if they are willing? I don't think so.

So why are people willingly going into this ring of trafficking? It could be something as innocent as a job offer from overseas. But from what I have gathered, it is simply because people are destitute. You have no money, and not a very good quality of life, somebody comes along and offers a roof, meals for your belly, and a job. You have no choice, so why not. What they don't expect is the bullying, the drug abuse, and the general depravity that you will experience being forced into something that you might have been willing to do at first because you had no better option. But to live and work under a regime of ownership, is not right.

So what do we do? First off, be aware. Know that this exists and more importantly a thriving business, with little police interference. Beware when traveling abroad. They love blondes for some reason. So wear a hat and look ugly.

I kid. I kid. But in all seriousness, just be aware. Odds are you have a better chance of being killed by a bee than to be coerced into forced slavery or prostitution. Just don't support this by getting a prostitute overseas or here in America. But then again, don't do that because it's disgusting.

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What is going on?

I have just read three stories, all occurring this past week, in which parents murder their children in horrendous ways. The first was last week, a man killed his wife and five kids, because they lost their jobs (they weren't laid off, they were fired for very good reasons). Then I read about another guy killing his two kids and wife (motive unknown). And then I just finished reading about an Australian father who threw his daughter off a bridge into the water 190 feet below. She survived the initial fall, but died later of massive internal injuries.

What the hell is going on?

I don't care how bad things get, or how much you can't take it anymore, kids do not deserve your hate, your blame, your anger, or your mistakes. It is absolutely disgusting that people are capable of such atrocities.

*sigh* I need a cute, pretty picture of something furry to brighten this bleak afternoon:

Ahhhh. Much better.

Here are the stories if you care to read further:

With no job and 5 kids, 'better to end our lives,' man wrote
Ohio family found dead in suspected murder-suicide
Australian Throws Daughter Off Bridge to Death, Police Say

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