Let’s do it this way – does it also annoy you insanely when you have already stood in a long line for some fast food (which by itself eliminates the epithet “fast”, but now this is not about that), and when there’s only one person left before you in line, they start to choose for a long, long time what they really want – if they want anything at all? While you’re literally drooling in anticipation…

And if such a person is also your spouse? Then there is something like secondhand embarrassment – when the other does something shameful, and you feel ashamed instead of them! And if this is repeated over and over again, then there is a temptation to share your feelings online – as it happened with the user u/TheElMatadORR, whose cry from the heart we will read today.

The author of the post has been married to his wife for over 13 years and they travel a lot

Image credits: Samson Katt (not the actual photo) 

What annoys the guy about his wife is that she’s always overly slow while ordering fast food

Image credits: u/TheElMatadORR

Moreover, the process of menu checking always starts only when she’s already at the counter, no earlier

Image credits: Danny Choo (not the actual photo) 

Image credits: u/TheElMatadORR

The husband has tried offering her the menu ahead of time or the drive-through several times, but it just didn’t work at all

Image credits: Karsten Winegeart (not the actual photo) 

Image credits: u/TheElMatadORR

So now the dude simply takes it online to vent about it, desperately seeking any wholesome advice from the netizens

So the Original Poster (OP) is nearly 40 and his wife is a few years older. They have been married for 13 years, and what has always annoyed the man in his partner is that on any journey, wherever the couple goes, when they go to order some fast food, the woman always studies the menu for a long time and thoroughly. But it happens only when her turn comes up, and she is already standing at the counter.

And there is no way to look at everything and make a choice while standing in line – the selection process begins only directly near the counter, when the employee politely answers all questions, and in their heart they must be only thinking “Good Lord, can you finally make your order?!” and behind your back, you literally feel the annihilating glances of other guys shifting from foot to foot and just waiting, waiting, waiting…

Meanwhile, the original poster’s wife goes on asking clarifying questions, sincerely wonders why they stopped selling some dishes (which, to be honest, disappeared from the menu a decade ago, no less), asks them to add some ingredient or remove something… and the author of the post at this time stands by her and feels that if glances could kill, then he and his wife would have long ago turned into two small hills of ashes…

To clarify the details, the OP admits that the drive-through or looking at the menu ahead does not work in his wife’s case. They do not work at all, because he has tried more than once. Drive-through is also not an option – because he has to sit back and give his wife the opportunity, leaning with her elbows on his lap, for a long time, at least five minutes or so, to pick her food. Well, nobody’s perfect, and the original poster’s wife apparently isn’t either…

Image credits: Mike Mozart (not the actual photo) 

Did you think there were no studies on the amount of time the average person spends ordering fast food? I didn’t think so either, but it turns out there are such studies. And this is what they tell us: during lunch time peak hours, customers spent on average 5.4 minutes waiting before they can get their orders. The 5.4 minutes consisted of 2.42 minutes of queuing time and 2.98 minutes of service time. This total waiting time is only slightly below the actual expected waiting time of 5.42 minutes.

This study was done at the James Cook University in Australia, but the numbers in the US are unlikely to differ drastically. According to the latest CivicScience data, 27% of U.S. adults who eat at fast-food restaurants (such as Chick-fil-A or McDonald’s) expect to receive their food after ordering within 2-3 minutes at the most, while a plurality (42%) say 5 minutes should be the max wait time. For 7% of respondents, “fast” actually means immediate, as they feel there shouldn’t be any waiting involved at all.

Thus, the maximum five minutes that the OP’s wife takes to place her order is almost the entire average waiting time for an order to be made; that is, the time is effectively doubled. And there is also the risk that the restaurant will lose especially impatient customers – after all, according to a recent CivicScience poll, more than one-third (36%) of fast-food diners say they have recently either switched to a different fast-food establishment or stopped a specific visiting restaurant due to wait times. Therefore, it is not surprising that employees of such establishments are also not enthusiastic about overly long food selection processes. “As a service industry employee, your wife is the kind of customer we wish we could fire,” one of the folks in the comments to the original post honestly wrote.

And of course, it’s not surprising that many commenters also admit that just reading this post describing the behavior of the author’s wife made them stressed. Apparently, people have a good imagination, and immediately saw themselves standing behind such a leisurely customer. “We all collectively feel your pain,” one of the commenters wrote. And people also advise the author of the post to finally show his wife that very performance by John Pinette about lines driving him crazy. What can you, our dear readers, advise in such a case?

People in the comments, however, just cracked up at this story, nothing more, so all this guy could probably do here is put up with it and tolerate it

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