Drive-In Drama

Drive In Menu as seen by 30 year-old

Drive In Menu as seen by senior citizen

It happened again yesterday.
For the past 5 years I've been unable  to order food at a drive-in without muffing it up. I hear  people ahead of me rattle off a fourteen-item order, reciting details like "no pickles, double the tomato, hold the onion, four sugars, no cream, and extra napkins." I'm not so lucky.
The moment I turned into the fast food driveway I began to panic. By the time I could see the menu, the voice on the speaker crackled, "Welcome to Burger Land! Would you like to try our double-sided triple-breasted Southwest Hawaiian chicken fiesta today? The minute she said that, I forgot what  I wanted to order. I began sweating. I looked at the menu. It was all a blur! So many choices! I could hear the giggles from the car behind me. "Hey, Granny," someone called, "Why don't you order Ensure?"
I felt eyes everywhere staring, waiting, waiting. The voice came back. "Place your order when you're ready!" My eyes raced over the blurry menu, my throat went dry, and I weakly crackled back into the microphone with the only answer I could think of. "Number 5 please."
Please, Please, I thought, let there be a number 5.
There was dead silence. More sweat. Finally the voice crackled back, "Number 5, Super whammy stuffed burrito extreme with bacon and anchovies. That'll be $15.20 at the next window!"
I didn't care if it was $150.00, I just wanted to get out of there.
I'm done with drive-ins until they put the menu board out in the parking lot where I can study it for awhile.