Touch Me

So I just got back from taking the older cherubs to school and, as is the tradition, I stopped by the local DD's for two large hazelnut coffees, extra extra in each, and a box of 50 assorted no-nuts.

And a thought came to me, after I paid for the goods and drove off.

There are two types of drive-thru attendants in the world: those who will go out of their way to keep from touching you at all costs; and rapists.

The first group acts thusly: You order. You drive up. And you see the drive-thru window slide open but there's no one there.

Until you realize that the attendant, who is asking you for your money, is standing at the other end of the goddamn restaurant.

These people want no contact at all with humans. And here they are working in a facility that has the sole purpose of serving the public.

You reach out to give them your money - unbuckling your seat belt, reaching through your window, and through the drive-thru window, so that your upper torso is resting on the fucking cash register. You are so far inside you have to hook the toes of your boots around the steering wheel.

And the attendant stands there, leaning against the far wall, her palms turned up, her head slightly turned away, and you realize with horror that maybe it's you. Maybe you've shit yourself and she's just trying to be polite. Maybe she sees dead people and there's one sitting in the passenger seat of your car with a bullet hole in their forehead.

Either way, you're in it up to here, you're practically an employee now, but you go to put the money in her palm and she keeps lowering it. This is when you realize that she is phobic. She is telling you, without using her words like good grown ups do, that if you touch her she is going to urinate blood right there.

Daintily - ever so cautiously - and with a tad bit of guilt (because it is, after all, you're fault for being human) you drop the coinage and the bills into her upturned palm and then climb back through the windows.

Presently she returns with the goods.

"Would you like a carrying tray?" she asks you.

"No thanks."

"Please?"

The look on her face tells you she doesn't care if you've only ordered a single munchkin, she does not, in this lifetime, want to touch you. A carrying tray means she can hold one side and hand the other side to you. No flesh touches.

"No really, I'm fine."

She then hands you your coffee, a cup at a time, by the lid with the forefinger and the thumb. That way you are forced to grab the cup and therefore don't have to touch her fingers, but more importantly, the lid is bound to pop off, dumping scalding coffee onto your balls, which you know she wants more than anything.

To end the experience, she offers you your change. By now you understand she does not want to be touched, so you offer your own upturned palm, and she proceeds to drop the coins and bills into it from the fucking roof.

Then, you have the attendants who just want to get laid.

Or so it would seem, considering they go out of their way to fondle you, stopping short of reaching through the window and crawling into your pants.

These people greet you by sticking their head through the drive-thru window before you've even pulled up. You offer them your money and they interlace their fingers with yours and you expect them to start reciting wedding vows.

They hand you your coffee with both hands and it's so awkward that you even try to take the coffee by the lid, to avoid the molestation, and somehow they still find a way to brush a finger across your hand.

And it feels dirty. I mean, you really are left uncertain, like maybe you owe them an extra buck for the grope, you know?

I need to shower now. I'm feelin grody.