On Wed 16 Jul 2008 11:11:24a, blake murphy told us...

On Tue, 15 Jul 2008 22:51:00 -0500, Kathleen
wrote:

At the St. Louis Bread Company (known as Panera in other cities), they
used to attempt to foster a faux "friendly" atmosphere by demanding a
first name to attach to your order. This was then hollered out over a
loudspeaker when your food was ready to be picked up at the counter. To
make it even more obnoxious, at least half the time the counter person
would balk at keying in "Kathleen" (OMFG! 8 whole characters!), and
would insist on shortening it to "Kathy" (used only by my nuclear family
of origin), or in one case, "Kate", which I've never used at all. I had
no idea they were addressing me when they repeated, "Order up for Kate"
as my lunch sat on the counter cooling.

I complained to the manager. Told her just give me a freakin' order
number, that I didn't care for having my name bellowed by strangers and
that if they were really a "friendly little local sammich kiosk" they
wouldn't have to ask my name and key it into a terminal.

In retrospect, I missed an opportunity to amuse myself by failing to
give a creative nickname like maybe "Zorro", or "Darth Crabby".


a pal of mine used to always use 'norman,' 'n. bates' or, if feeling
especially frisky, 'norman bates,' in homage to his movie idol.

your best friend,
mother




I guess that's better than saying "Master Bates".

--
Wayne Boatwright
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Wednesday, 07(VII)/16(XVI)/08(MMVIII)
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I was born to speak all mirth and no
matter. -- Shakespeare
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