Blue Lemon Blues...

Ever since we've been told to stay away from basically everyone, we've tried to do our part in helping others. One way of doing this is ordering take-out. We've ordered more take-out in the past three weeks than normal.

Because we want to help.

But last night, things just seemed to go wrong...in so many ways.

Things began well enough. We're fortunate enough to have a Blue Lemon restaurant close by. They're offering a family special--a good deal on four meals. In addition to my wife and I ordering out for our weekly Date Night, three of our kids wanted in on the Blue Lemon goodness as well. 

We placed the order. 6:20pm pick up time.

All was well.

We showed up at the restaurant--take out only. We parked in one of the stalls and waited. My wife and I usually get take out for our Date Night meals, so waiting outside was nothing new. The half a dozen cars also waiting for their dinner, perhaps not--some seemed pretty steamed.

We stayed in our car listening to conference. We were there maybe 10 - 15 minutes before anyone even came out of the restaurant. They were obviously backed-up. A frazzled-looking employee came out with a large order. Several were out of their cars waiting. She said my wife's name and I took the package from her.

We placed six orders. I counted only five. We went back to our car and tried to figure out which order was missing. The employee came out again and people started in on her. "We're a 6:30 order." We've been waiting since..." We figured one of our children's meals was not there, but which one. I took a meal and went to take the keys out of the ignition. As I backed out of the car, the sandwich fell out of the package and landed on the pavement. 

Now we're down two meals.

I took the rest of the food home, then came back to pick up my wife who talked to the worker and let them know we were down a meal (she didn't say anything about ordering a new sandwich--the place was so busy...). I picked her up and we called the kids to see which one wanted the one sandwich we got. One kid said they'd take it--the other said a Wendy's burger would be okay. When we got home, the one who wanted the Blue Lemon meal ended up not wanting it--because when we called we described to them the wrong sandwich.

Eventually, we all ate. Since we were exhausted from a long day of yard work and other things, we were not in the best of moods to begin with. I can only imagine the other people waiting for their dinners were equally tired. Plus, throw in the pandemic element only adds to the situation. I should say that I do not blame Blue Lemon--it was one of those nights and I feel terrible for them--the night already sucked and it wasn't getting better.

When we called the kids to ask them who wanted the sandwich and who wanted Wendy's, my wife just started laughing. She almost couldn't communicate she laughed so hard. It was just one of those nights that did not go well. We still hope to help out local businesses in the future--maybe not on Saturday nights, though.