Taco Bell Awards, Part Deux

Full of some brand new ones from tonight and some classics that I recently remembered, here is part two of the coveted Taco Bell Awards.


Winner of the award for the "Most Original Food Request"

Customer at the drive-thru: Do you have a Quesadilla with beans?

My manager Miguel and I had a good laugh and a shudder over this one. For those of you who don't know, a quesadilla is a tortilla folded over with cheese in the middle, and it's grilled. The idea of inserting beans in it is...well...rather nauseating.


Winner of the award for the "Most Mixed-Up Customer"

A lady in a van along with her family ordered a grande combo, a chalupa, and some other things at the drive-thru, and pulled up to the window. I asked her if she wanted any hot or mild sauce, and she said, "Can I get another chalupa?" So I put another chalupa on her order, collected the money, and handed her the bag of napkins that normally contains hot/mild sauce if the customer asks for any. But since she didn't ask for any when I asked her, I just gave her the bag without sauce.

She said, "Oh, can I have some sauce?"
I said, "What kind?"
She said, "Either, it doesn't matter...Hot...Cold..."

I looked over at her quizzically to see if she was joking, and she was turned to her family obviously too distracted by some conversation to realize what she had just said.


Winner of the award for the "Customer Who Could Benefit From a Dictionary"

Guy in Drive-Thru: I wanna Beef and Potato...no red...no white.

Me: You want a Beef and Potato BURRITO with no red SAUCE and no SOUR CREAM?!?!

Guy: Yah.

I really made a point of stressing those capitalized words to show him that it really wasn't that hard to say them, even though it would have been funny to read it back to him the way he said it and make the cooks decipher it for themselves.


Winners of the award for the "Crazy Old Ladies of Taco Bell"

Old Lady Story #1:

An old lady came to the walk-up, and I took her order. She said, "I want a Chupalupa." I looked at her, and asked, "You mean a chalupa?"

Meanwhile, I was fighting the urge to break out and sing the Oompa Loompa Song, only changing the words to Chupa Lupa.

Old Lady Story #2:

I was towards the back of the store prepping some pizzas, and one of the hispanic girls who works there and who doesn't speak English very well (that really narrows it down, I know) came up to me and asked me to take an order up front. I was puzzled as to why she wanted me to, but I figured she probably didn't understand what the customer wanted.

I walked over to the customer, who happened to be an old lady (go figure), and asked her what she wanted.

She said, "I'd like a Nachos Bell Grande with avocado."
I said, "You mean Guacamole...?"

Maybe she really wanted slices of avocado on her nachos...too bad this isn't the Ritz Carlton.


Winner of the award for the "Guy Who Takes Advertising Too Seriously"

Some guy drives up to the drive-thru in one of those big gas hogging Dodge "HEMI" (Hype Engineered by Money-Driven Industrialist) trucks which are advertised as being testosterone incarnate. The bigger and more powerful your engine is, the smaller your wallet becomes. Not so manly after all is it?

Anyway, he comes thru, and the automated message plays:

"Hi, can we make you a Chicken Quesadilla today?"

He replies, "Would you like to?"
I say, "Oh, I would love to."
He asks, "Is it free?" (Strapped for cash, eh? Wonder why...)
I reply, "It's almost free."
He asks, "How close to being free is it?"
I say, "$2.36"
He retorts, "That's not close to free."
I say, "It is compared to that truck you're driving."
He happily says, "It's a Hemi!"

I could almost see the joyful glee on his face after he told me what kind of engine was in his truck, as if I actually cared. After all, if he's going to pay the extra money for the advertised name, he might as well take every chance he gets to show off that he has a loud engine that runs on twenty dollar bills as opposed to gallons of gasoline.


Winner of the award for the "Most Clueless Customer...EVER"

This also happened earlier tonight, and it was the highlight of the night. This one will be hard to top in terms of utter ignorance on the part of the customer.

Customer at the drive-thru: I want 2 hamburger...low cal
Miguel: What was that?
Customer: I want 2 low calorie hamburgers
(At this point I just start laughing hysterically. The other employees were looking at me funny, and Miguel was trying to keep from laughing while talking with this guy)
Miguel: I'm sorry sir, but we only have tacos and burritos here.
Customer: Oh...(Drives away)


When the customer first said, "I want two hamburger..." I thought he was going to say something like I want two hamburger tacos or something, because that's happened before and it's a good way to clarify the type of meat that you want. But instead he kind of paused and said, "two hamburger...low cal."

First of all, why would you come to TACO bell for a HAMBURGER?
Second of all, why would you want a low calorie hamburger? What does that even mean? The bun and the lettuce only? Maybe he meant low carb and what he really wanted was one of those sissy burgers that have lettuce in place of buns. Why don't you just go eat a head of lettuce and gnaw on a cow you Atkins Diet Freaks.