People Person

If there’s one thing you should know about me, it’s this: I border on being too neurotic to function. I’m also terrified of my mother despite the fact that I’m 26. I also frequently cry myself to sleep while cradling a bottle of Absolut. I also tend to overshare with people I don’t really know very well.

Because I’m really neurotic.

One of the biggest sources of my neuroses is interacting with other people. I’m sort of bad at it. Like really bad at it. Like I think half of my office still thinks I’m either mentally retarded or foreign. I’m basically terrified of interacting with other human beings until I reach an undetermined level of comfort with them.  I kind of revert to really inappropriate conversation topics (“Feline AIDS: Modern Epidemic, or God's Will?”) or making fart noises with my mouth.

One of the few things in society that is sympathetic to the Social Retard is the fast food drive-thru. I pull up and I talk to a faceless box. The pre-recorded voice cheerfully chimes, “Hello! Would you like to try a [random thing I don’t want to try]?” and I can say “No thanks!” without worrying about disappointing anyone like my mother.

It’s worked so well for me for so many years. I talk to a screen, a box, not a real person. I’m fairly certain I could tell this box about my deep-seeded fears of rejection, failure and dying alone, I could even ask it if I could call it Grandma since I hadn’t had one since I was 9. And the box would love me unconditionally. I love computers and boxes and NOT TALKING TO HUMAN BEINGS.

Then McDonald’s ruined it.

I pulled into the drive-thru on my lunch break, because despite my neuroses, I still really, really dig a double cheeseburger. (Which I then have to scarf down in my car like a rabid raccoon, because my health-conscious employer actually FROWNS UPON, if not FORBIDS, greasy fast food in the office.) And there she was.

A McDonald’s worker stood there with an iPad, ready to take my order. A PERSON I HAVE TO LOOK AT AND TALK TO. Someone I have to LOOK IN THE EYE and say that I’m not interested in a cherry berry smoothie. A person whose annoyance and frustration is PALPABLE as I go through my order of a double cheeseburger – no pickle, no onion, extra ketchup – with a Diet Coke to drink with NO ICE because it hurts my teeth.

It might be different if the downtown McDonald’s wasn’t so…rude. Every morning, when I pull up for my morning coffee, the box asks me in its prerecorded voice “Hello! Would you like to try a [oh my God I don’t want a goddamn smoothie]?” followed by another voice of “WHATCHOO WANT?” Meanwhile, I’m sitting, vaguely confused, yelling at the box, “Can you bring back the first lady? She was really nice!”

So anyway, I was struck with fear when I saw this woman with the iPad. She was yelling at someone on her walkie talkie headset, and this made me feel even worse about myself. I pulled up to her. I looked at her. I looked at my old friend, the box. I looked at her. I looked down. I realized she had asked me something and was looking at me expectantly.

And I drove away.

Aaaaand that’s why I have to find a new McDonald’s to frequent.