I was driving my wife home after she had a medical procedure, and she asked me to buy her some food from Chipotle. I listened with apprehension as she rattled off a litany of food items and ingredient customizations, as I knew there would be no way that I’d get all the details right. You see, my wife has very particular preferences when it comes to food. So to ensure that I had the best chance of getting her order correct, I asked her to text the instructions to me. She initially refused, saying that I make no effort to remember her preferences. I said that if I have to remember more than 2 or 3 things about her order, I will screw it up and she will be upset. Besides, I was driving and trying to find the restaurant so wasn’t able to pay enough attention to commit her customizations to memory. So she relented and sent me the following text message (verbatim and therefore in quotes):
“Chicken Al pastor, brown black beans corn, green sauce and salsa on side”
And while I was still driving, she verbally told me to take her phone and redeem an offer for free queso by scanning a QR code provided in the app and also scan her rewards number so she could earn points. I felt that I could remember those last 2 instructions because they were the last things she mentioned, and all the other details were in the text message. I had never heard of chicken al pastor, nor did I know that Chipotle had that on their menu. It turns out that it is a time-limited offer. Note that the link may not work when the offer expires, but here’s a screenshot from that site.
After struggling to find parking, my wife stayed in the car while I entered the store and read my wife’s text message to the server. I was asked, “Burrito or bowl?” to which I requested a bowl which my wife usually gets (BTW, I received no credit for knowing the answer to this question). I also had the intuition to know that “brown black beans” meant “brown rice and black beans” despite the instructions being technically incomplete/illogical (no credit for that one either). After carefully crafting my wife’s gourmet meal, I scanned the QR code for the free queso offer and scanned the QR code for my wife’s rewards program and paid. Mission accomplished, or so I thought (foreshadowing).
When we got home, my wife asked where the green sauce was. I told her that I saw them put the green sauce in the bowl. She complained that she wanted the green sauce on the side, NOT IN THE BOWL.
----- Begin Side Conversation About Oxford Comma -----
One could argue that there was no Oxford comma in her text message, so it should have been clear that both the green sauce and salsa needed to be put on the side. However, if you read the entire text message, the punctuation is wildly inconsistent, so no reasonable person could definitively conclude that the absence of an Oxford comma necessarily meant that the green sauce should have been put on the side. Plus, I am pretty sure that my wife does not know what an Oxford comma is.
----- End Side Conversation About Oxford Comma -----
Anyway, the situation was quite upsetting to her, as she continued to complain that I never try to understand her. I found the situation to be somewhat amusing actually because not only did I anticipate that this would happen, I also called it out and tried to prevent it from happening, and it happened anyway. It’s not that I don’t try to understand my wife as a person, I just have low tolerance for complexity when it comes to fast food, so I try to shift the burden of perfecting an order back on her, and therefore I think she is partially correct on that criticism of me. Also, I think I have been conditioned to just accept that whatever I do, it will be wrong, and I will be blamed anyway.
When I order food, I’ll usually accept whatever normally comes with the dish, or in the case of a build-your-own dish scenario, I’ll just have everything. Honestly I don’t really care that much if I get white or black rice, brown or black beans, or green or red salsa. I certainly don’t need things put on the side, just dump everything in and save a plastic container from taking up space in landfills. Besides, I will eventually mix it all together and everything will come out the other end looking the same regardless of how it was prepared. And if someone orders food for me, I will say “thank you” and happily eat the food. No complaints, no drama.
I am not saying that people should not have detailed food preferences. I just think they should not impose their expectations on others and get upset when people fall short of those expectations. Also, a clearer text message such as this one could have prevented the snafu:
“Chicken al pastor in bowl, brown rice, black beans, corn, green sauce on side, salsa on side. In Chipotle app, redeem offer for free queso and scan rewards code.”
It is specific and understandable, and I just demonstrated how an Oxford comma in combination with other clear communication could have saved the day. Oh what could have been!
