I met three friends at a diner for breakfast and noticed that the menu had a “55 Plus” section. Leaping at the chance to use my advanced years to financial advantage, I pointed at the menu and ordered what was written there. One of my friends, without looking at the menu, ordered this: “A half-order of biscuits and gravy with an egg on top.” The waitress did not hesitate, wrote his order on her pad, and we both got exactly what we wanted.
In the long-ago time of cafés and diners, one could slide onto a stool or into a booth and order whatever we wanted, prepared as we wanted it. (Of course, that did not include the diner in the movie “Five Easy Pieces,” where Jack Nicholson, when refused a side order of wheat toast, orders a chicken salad sandwich on wheat toast, “hold the chicken and bring the toast.”) Then, someone got the idea that a greater profit could be made from a busier consumer base by instantly serving a limited menu. “Fast food” was born, and we swept in and out of those places for a while before one of them decided to separate from the pack and offer consumers the choice to “have it your way.”
In a conversation with my second bride I mentioned having gone through a fast-food drive-up for a late meal. “I hate drive-up windows,” she said. “They never get my order right.” With great delicacy, I noted that I have never once gotten less than what I ordered at a drive-through: “A number 3 with hash browns and a small coffee, one cream, one sugar.” I posited — again, with the sensitivity of a bomb-disposal technician — that the complexity of her order might be a contributor to the mix-up. Once I extinguished the flames in my hair and on my eyebrows, I gave silent consideration to her dilemma. “I’ll have the quarter-pounder with cheese with no cheese, no onion, no pickle, no ketchup and one bun toasted with butter.”
There will always be people who will order outside of the lines. Despite my artistic background, I am never one of those. I point at the menu and eat what is delivered. But we have become a society that demands to know what is behind “door number two,” and if we don’t like the prize, we reserve the right to create an alternative. We have been encouraged to do this by purveyors who have told consumers that they can have it their way. We now believe that there are no limits to “my way,” and the phrase “no substitutions” does not apply to us.
We need not compromise our principles nor accept inferior products from a retailer of any kind of goods, but we all need to recognize that if there are no tablecloths and tuxedoed wait-staff, it may just be a burger joint, and the steak may not be the best option on the menu. Which is not to say that “burger joint” is a gustatory compromise: when you want a burger, you want a burger. But “Have it your way” does not mean that a baker must go out back and bag a deer for us. When we add complexities to our orders, we should also add patience and understanding, for we have added confusion and indecision for the cooks and servers.
Despite what Frank sang, facing it all and standing tall at the front of a long line of hungry diners is not the best time to do it “my way.” You might just want to point at the picture.