I'm not Sally of "When Harry Met Sally" fame, but rare is the meal that I order without some kind of deletion, addition or change.
I don't like vegetables or mashed potatoes with skins in them, and one of the guys who worked for me used to hear me order turkey subs enough that he developed a frighteningly good impression ("plain turkey, on white ... no, I don't want lettuce or tomato ... just meat and bread").
When I used to get soft drinks with my meal, I always ordered them without ice. Once, to the astonishment of my companions, I sent back a soda not because it had ice in it, but because the waiter brought it without ice and clearly only the amount of soda they'd put in if the drink had ice in it.
Now, I mostly drink water with my meals, so I don't care if there's ice (you can't water down water, after all), but I used to have a problem with servers disregarding my request to not have lemon in my drink until my wife suggested asking for it "without lemon" instead of "no lemon." I have no idea why -- maybe "without" registers because of the extra syllable -- but I can probably count the lemons in my water since then on one hand.
Which brings me to Wendy's.
I've written before about how it baffles me that Wendy's refuses to recognize hamburgers to the point of serving cheeseburgers even when I specifically say the word "hamburger." Much like Niagara Mohawk and mlb.tv, among others, I'm sure one of my rants is on a training video somewhere. (I've also gotten the "do you want lettuce, tomato and onion" line when I've asked for my triple hamburger plain, but far less often.)
But I do love their burgers, so when my wife and I went out for some errands today near a Wendy's, that's where we went for lunch. This time, however, I made a fateful decision.
I surrendered ... threw in the towel ... tapped out ... gave up. When it came time to order, I requested a plain ... triple ... hamburger ...
... without cheese.
I still think it's stupid that Wendy's defaults to cheeseburgers, and just as stupid that their employees either don't realize or are trained not to realize when someone wants a hamburger. But I just didn't feel like fighting it, and I did get exactly what I asked for.
And it was tasty.
Problem that is completely inconsequential in light of the many troubles in our world ... solved.
