Sorry, Roo, but my current pet peeve is with McDonalds... I'm fine with the food and all, but you have to understand that I pay for everything with credit cards. Charge it, get the reward points, then pay it right off, but the point is, I don't use cash very much anymore, and I'll sometimes go around for weeks without having more than a few coins in my purse. I was *delighted* when fast food places started taking cards -- no more running to the ATM just so I could eat french fries. :rolleyes:
The only problem is, sometimes their credit card machines aren't working, so they'll only accept cash. Which I probably don't have. I'm a reasonable woman, I know that glitches happen, but this happened to me *three* times last week, at three different McD's locations.
It's happened before, too -- at a fourth location, plus possibly some while we've been travelling.
One of those times was at a Wal-Mart, actually -- the guy said they were rebooting the system and it should only be ten minutes. Hello? I'm hungry now, and I have shopping to do, and I'm not going to twiddle my thumbs while you get your electronics working. Lost the sale, buddy. That was the second time last week it'd happened. The first time was in a mall food court -- although, mysteriously, the woman behind me was able to pay with her credit card.
The third time was at a drive-through. Now, this is a location that was slow to get cards -- other area locations were taking them, but this place was cash-only. When I pulled up to the drive through, I was delighted to see those little credit card signs -- finally, I thought, this McD's has joined the 21st century. So I ordered -- everything came up on the little screen okay. She was trying to tell me something, but between the intercom and her accent, I couldn't for the life of me figure out what she was saying (and that's another thing -- when someone says they didn't understand something, could the speaker please repeat it *slowly* and try hard to be clear -- maybe even reword it -- instead of just rattling off the same phrase again??). I got the impression it was something about Happy Meal toys, so I said, okay, whatever.
But then when I get around to the window to pay and try to hand over my card, she says, "we don't take those." I pointed at the sign which clearly said that they *did* take them. "The system is down."
Luckily for me and my hungry family, I did have cash on hand, so I was able to pay, but... yeesh, people. I understand technology can be finicky, nothing's perfect, etc, but why does this *only* ever happen to me at McDonalds??? I don't recall *ever* having that problem at a Wendy's, or Burger King, or Arby's, or KFC, or... They need to stop ordering their card readers off the back pages of comic books.
I said I was never going to go to McD's again -- much to the dismay of my two kids. I didn't really mean it, but... it might be a while.
So that's my vent for the day, aren't you glad you asked?
PJ
