People are refusing in
increasing numbers to touch the touchscreens at McDonald’s. Why? Because when you touch them, you’re also
touching the fingers of everyone who touched them before you and you never know
where unwashed hands have been.
The screens where you
place your order are confusing. And they don’t work any faster than your
old 2003 Gateway computer, the one that came in a box decorated like the hide
of a Holstein cow and moved slower than Elsie when she found a fresh pile of
grass.
This little rebellion
started with the “I-don’t-wanna-do-it” league that characteristically didn’t
wanna do it. But since health departments across the land started testing
the screens for … um … germy residue, the league’s membership has grown faster
than a petrie dish full of nasties.
This has resulted in
three market-based solutions.
1.
Some
people just don’t eat there anymore.
2.
Many
people buy their food on the already-crowded drive up windows, then carry it
inside and sit at a table.
3.
Many
other people crowed the lone traditional register that is left standing after
the company installs the touch screens.
There are other possible
solutions.
1.
Use
exam gloves to touch the touch screen. (Doesn’t always work.)
2.
Use
your own germicidal spray before touching. (Probably upsets management. If that
stuff leaks into the computer works it probably causes Game Over Syndrome.
3.
Use
one of those rubber tipped pens from your smartphone. (This works, but not well
and you have to douse the tip in a bottle of Purell and wipe it down after use.
This deteriorates the rubber and the effectiveness of the pens.)
The screens are huge.
But you have to know McD’s corporate lingo if you use one. Example: they
offer what they laughingly call hashbrown potatoes with breakfast. If there’s such thing as a reconstituted
potato, this fits the profile. But where do they hide the option?
There’s no “search” function,
so you have to know where to find it on the menu. There is no “how-to”
YouTube video that shows you how to find it. One would be helpful.
All of America knows
what’s in a Big Mac: Two all beef patties, special sauce, lettuce cheese,
pickles, onions on a sesame seed bun. They did a good job of engraving
that on our brains. But suppose you want
your Wilt-Burger without, say, onions? Is there a way to order that using the
screen? Maybe. But it’s lost among the sub-menus.
And so may be the
product on which their whole business rests: the plain, unvarnished,
undecorated, lowly hamburger.
SHRAPNEL:
--Convicted boy bopper
Jerry Sandusky is to be re-sentenced next month, say the courts.
Apparently, 30 to 60 years is not enough. Sandusky, 75, is unlikely to live
beyond the minimum anyway… so why bother?
--NRA puppeteer Wayne
LaPierre must be getting rusty. Both trump and Moscow Mitch evidently are
thinking of increasing the strength of the whisper-touch registration
laws. Wayne, babes, y’ better take advantage of that marionette string
sale at Amazon and get to replacing the frayed ones before these madmen
actually DO something dangerous, like strengthening the gun laws.
I’m Wes Richards. My
opinions are my own but you’re welcome to them. ®
Comments: Send ‘em here:
wesrichards@gmail.com
© WJR 2019
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