Twitter user Josh Raby went to his local McDonald’s drive thru at 1 AM to get himself a milkshake. What he received was a dramatic tale of love, loss and redemption that began with “Holy shit hello, you are at McDonald’s.”
While we at Snacktaku are on top of all things taste and texture related in the world of fast food, rarely do we take the time to consider the excitement of procurement. As Josh Raby’s tale demonstrates, the true adventure is often found between feeling hungry and handing over your credit card.
Here is the tale as Mr. Raby told it.
Josh began his visit with a common error with those well-versed in McDonald’s practices. The ice cream machine is the first to go when the evening slows down. If you ever find a McDonald’s that keeps the machine running into the early morning, hold it and never let it go.
Throughout the encounter Josh questions why he is still at the drive thru. Any fast food exchange that begins with “Hey holy shit hello,” bears seeing through to the bitter end.
Wow. My immediate thought is that Josh had stumbled upon a McDonald’s employee that had recently suffered the loss of a loved one and had no choice but to continue working. That’s pretty much exactly what happened, only not the way any sane person might think.
This is called “suggestive selling.” First you suggest that you might have a dead spouse, then you go for the pie sale. Works every time.
I am picture this poor McDonald’s employee, despondent to the point of tears, fumbling through Josh’s order while his wife peeks impishly from behind a stack of boxes. Josh didn’t know if he wanted to understand their marriage. I feel no one could truly understand it.
Immediately we are given proof that marriage strengthens a person. One leftover pie? Nonsense. Together we can sell at least two of the pies we were going to have to throw away shortly anyway.
At this point I am half expecting his wife to be a hand puppet.
Did you know “Fine” is an acronym? Fun fact: It’s not. Also, Josh will probably never be fine again. At least he wasn’t getting the worst of it.
The word “hero” is bandied about a lot these days. The man at the second window is the true hero.
And so, more minutes later than anyone else would have the patience to wait, Josh drove off into the night, the proud new owner of two pies, an amazing story and a chicken sandwich, hold the lettuce.
And a chicken sandwich with lettuce.
Update 4/11/2016, 2:30 PM: The folks at Buzzfeed reached out to Raby to confirm his story, and he assured them he was not making it all up. People in the comments are suggesting the apple pie boxes are unused, but considering they had leftover pie in them the store was desperately trying to push, it’s doubtful they would have left much of a mess.