One night a friend and me, we’ll call her B, went to hear our favorite local band play. We drank a good bit, had a lot of fun, and decided we needed food on the way home. I know that drinking alcohol, no matter how much or how little, always impairs judgement, because I knew then just like I know now that choosing to go to Taco Bell is NEVER a wise decision.

Impaired judgement aside, we rolled into the drive thru at Taco Bell. We sat there, laughing, cutting up, trying ot pay attention to the menu but I was mostly waiting for the stranger in the speaker to ask me for my order so that I could tell the stranger “Hold on a sec!” - because that’s what I do. I don’t pay attention until I’m forced to.

A few minutes of laughing at how stupid we are, and probably how stupid a few other people were that night, a voice comes over the speaker. It’s the long awaited stranger! Yippee! Now I can tell them to hold on so I can see what I want to order.. .right? WRONG!!

The strange speaker person, who happened to be female, threw me a curveball that nearly caused me to wet my pants.

First let me say, that in all of my *ahem* years of life, every time that I have ever pulled up to a drive thru to place an order, there has been some sort of “welcome to..” greeting, but it always, always ends with some version of “can I take your order?”

Not tonight!

She, the stranger in speaker at Taco Bell (which might very well be located in the Twilight Zone) says, and I quote: “Welcome to Taco Bell! How are you doing tonight?”

Silence.

WHAT?!! Seriously? I looked from the speaker, back to B who is impatiently waiting in the passenger seat for me to say something. Anything. But all I could think to say was “Am I really supposed to answer that?” (which I said to B).

Needless to say, B busted out laughing, I busted out laughing, and literally had to roll up my window for a few seconds because I didn’t want strange girl in the speaker to hear me laughing my ass off. B is telling me to answer her, and I’m flat refusing! I do NOT want to have a conversation with a SPEAKER!!

Finally I regained enough composure to roll the window down so B could order her food, and I just ordered nachos bell grande (which I paid dearly for later).

Why was that so funnY? Was it because we were drunk? I really don’t think so. I have asked around, and so far everyone agrees with me that everytime they have pulled into a drive thru they have been asked for their order.

Should I have responded with “I’m drunk and hungry, stupid! Why else would I be here?!” - Probably. I probably already had something unfathomable happen to my food, so it’s not like it would have hurt anything, however my reaction time was also impaired and as my grandma used to say, my giggle box was flipped over.

Thanks, strange girl in the speaker at Taco Bell. Thanks for a good laugh, and a good story.