Wednesday, April 11, 2007

The Man Filter

Pressed for time and wanting both Starbucks and McDonald's, which were in two different locations, I said to Eddie "I'll get the Starbucks, you get the McDonald's." Plan in motion.

The Starbucks was diagonally across the street from the McDonald's, so as we passed by, Eddie stopped the truck, I jumped out and said "I want a yogurt parfait from McDonald's. Yogurt Parfait."

I proceeded to Starbucks, got my latte and headed back out to wait for my chariot. Hmmm, not out front, but I did see it still parked across the street, so I started to walk over. Ed wasn't in the truck and although I thought he had plenty of time to order our food and should have been back out by now, I thought maybe I misunderstood and was supposed to meet him inside to sit and dine in luxury, so I walked inside to find him.

Just as I opened the door, he was on his way out. We got to the truck and he hands me the McDonald's bag, "You wanted an Egg McMuffin, right?"

"Um, noooo." I say, thinking he's kidding, as I look in the bag.

"Oh, I thought you wanted an Egg McMuffin."

"No," I said, rolling my eyes, "I wanted a yogurt parfait."

"Oh, okay, I'll go get you the yogurt." he answers, in his sweet I-don't-mind-I'll-go-get-it-for-you way.

So we go back and forth a few minutes with "no, don't worry about it" and "it's fine, I'll go get it" and "no it's okay, I'll just eat this" until he finally just starts off across the lot to get the breakfast I really wanted.

I wouldn't make an issue out of this if it were a one time thing, but it happens ALL. THE. TIME. I just don't understand how I say one thing, he acknowledges receipt of that one thing and then he hears something entirely different. It's as if there's a filter in his head that skews all the information and spits it back to him completely wrong. How exactly does that happen?

When I got back into the truck, I tried to approach the subject lightly (so it wouldn't seem as if I were nagging or harping, God forbid) and said, "Can I just ask one thing? How is it that I said 'yogurt parfait' and even made sure I said it twice so you understood what I wanted, and then you get me an Egg McMuffin??"

"I didn't hear what you said. It sounded like mmmph mmpfth yogurmpf parfamfh, so I had no idea what you wanted. I thought you said Egg McMuffin."

So there it is folks, he didn't even hear me. Not one word. Acknowledged, but didn't really even hear what I said, therefore getting me whatever he thought I'd want for breakfast.

I continued with, "I have never in my life eaten an Egg McMuffin. Never. Not once. Why would I order one now?"

"Well, I haven't known you your whole life," he says "I've only known you for three years."

"Okaaay, well in three years I've never ordered one."

"How am I supposed to know you don't eat Egg McMuffins every three years? This could be the three year anniversary of you ordering an Egg McMuffin. I don't know." From his tone, I assume it was his attempt to be funny; and how can I be pissed at someone who is so cute and trying to be funny?

I guess being specific in my requests are not enough, so next time I'll be better prepared. Instead of taking the risk of my information going through the filter, I'm going to write it down and pin it to his shirt like he's five years old; this way, the person at the counter filling my order can read my note and just hand him what I asked for.

No man filter involved.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Great story, you really have a way with getting the humor of a situation across. Although I have to admit, I think its not just men who have that filter. Sometimes when one of my roommates starts asking me a question or telling me something I will just assume I know the end of the sentence, which has definitely not always worked out well for me. :)

Anonymous said...

Like father, like son!!
Asking them to repeat it back to you works for me!!
ed's mom