Becoming Bolder

I've noticed as I age {cringe}, I find it easier to express myself in situations where I may feel slighted or taken advantage of. Interestingly enough, I've been presented with two such occasions in the last 24 hours.

First, last night, after working a long nine-hour day, I was in no mood to make dinner. (Sincere admiration for those who do it every night! You are AMAZING!) So we decided we would use Katelyn's Sonic coupons and get something to eat there. That option ended up not being as available as I would have hoped so I went to Taco Bell instead. It was just around the corner.

Anyway, as I drove up I could see that the line inside the store and at the drive-thru were both exceedingly long and because I had had enough with the changing of plans, I parked myself in the drive-thru lane. It moved quickly enough and finally I was ready to order.

Before I could say anything, the guy stated that they were out of ground beef. There was none left in the building. It was gone. I asked if they were substituting beef fajita meat for all the ground beef and was informed that yes, they could replace the ground beef with fajita meat, but it would cost extra.

Now, four of my five orders should have had ground beef and I was not appreciating the extra expense. I asked if they were giving out gift cards to those of us who were having to pay extra and was told that no, they weren't. Then the guy came back and offered me a free drink. I asked if I could get five free drinks and he gasped, "FIVE?" "Well," I said, "I am ordering dinner for a family of five here."

I ended up driving away with beef fajita meat as a replacement in all my orders at no extra expense as well as five free medium drinks.

Then today, I was trying to order pizza for our Christmas Eve dinner online. I had everything ready to go with my 20% off coupon for the online order. Then I ran into a snag.

When choosing the date of the order, 12/24 was not an option. No matter how many different ways I tried to work it, it just was not there. So, I called the store and asked for advice. The guy told me he could take my order but not the 20% coupon. I placed my order while continuing to ask if there was a way around the online snag. He finally told me he could give me the coupon and he would manually modify the order to reflect the 20%. I was pleased that his final total was the same as mine.

I'm happy not to be so much the shy wallflower that I was for so long. I wonder if Chad's behaviors are rubbing off too much on me?