Can we just start off with, I’m weird… I know this and I am now having a lot of problems because my routine is out of whack, just because of this!  All because the McDonald's by my house, where I stop every morning for a Diet Coke and bacon biscuit, installed new drive-thru lanes.

Seriously, the double-lane drive-thrus give me so much anxiety; enough that I will actually avoid going, because I’ve had the same type of thing happen to me more than once.  (yeah, so technically that means I could be the problem, but I don’t think I am.)

The way it’s supposed to work is one lane starts ordering as the other lane pull up.  As the first lane ends their order they then pull in to the line towards the window, then the outside (or "other" lane) does the same.  Perfect system. Except it depends on people to actually be mindful of what’s happening.

Here’s why I avoid double drive-thru lanes if there’s anyone else around because this is what really happens:

Scenario one:

I’m on the inside lane and finish my order, but because the last person in the outside lane is blocking my way to pull in the line as we move to the window, I don’t move.  Now the next person in the outside lane finishes their order and moves forward in their country-boy pickup (because it seems to always be), thinking I’m not done ordering, so as I inch into MY spot, they now think I’m cutting and they get all road-ragey.

Scenario Two:

This time I’m in the outside lane and I just order a Diet Coke and biscuit and I pull forward behind the car that’s blocking the inside lane (see above), while Karen and her “tribe” are still figuring out how many pancake platters to order.  Karen finishes her mega order and the lane still hasn’t moved forward and she has no idea that I’ve been waiting to move forward.. so now she moves her beat-up Oldsmobile to the line and starts angrily trying to push in, EVEN THOUGH THIS IS MY SPOT, KAREN!! Now I have her whole weird lost boys looking “tribe” giving me the evil eye and saying crappy things that I can hear because ALL of her windows are down. (I mean I could hear it, if I had left my windows down, but my a/c works, so I don’t hear it.)

 

Both scenarios have happened more than once to me (no, not the same people), and gave me enough anxiety that I just try to avoid these at all cost.  AND I don’t really think they make things any faster.  Yes, in theory, but when the person on one of the lanes can’t figure out how to sub bacon for sausage or take off cheese on the Quarter Pounder, one lane or two lanes, it doesn’t matter, because it’s all slowed down.

On the plus side, I have lost 3 pounds since the double lane drive-thru went in next to my house.

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