The Taco Bell drive-through can be an adversary not to be reckoned with on a Thursday night. Somehow, the sloshed student must negotiate with Taco Bell employees to prepare a Sourdough Jack or perhaps a seafood platter. From there, the student encounters the most treacherous task of all: figuring out where they are. Finally, after claiming two Baha Chalupas with a side of Guacamole, our Thursday night champion must brave all temptations not to lose consciousness on the steering wheel. For one student about five months ago, the pressure was too much to effectively exit the parking lot.
“We had a person pass out at the end of the drive through,” said one Taco Bell employee. “We had to run outside and wake him up.”
Taco Bell, along with other fast food and 24-hour joints, have become accustomed to serving slurring students every Thursday and Saturday night for years. At Wendy’s, employees get a front row seat to students relieving themselves in dumpsters or turning curbs into speed bums. One Wendy’s employee described an odd circumstance that occurred just the other day to a co-worker.
“One of our employees fell on the floor just before she could give this drunk guy his food,” she explained. “Instead of checking to see if she was OK, the guy leaned through the window and slurred ‘I’m still hungry’.”
When one man asked for a Jumbo Jack and some [expletive deleted] tacos at Wendy’s, the employees could not help but gawk at the bottle of Jack Daniels that was still in his lap. The staff at Wendy’s said that it is not uncommon for aggressive drunks to try and leap through the window after simple questions like “What drink can I get you?” Down the street, Taco Bell had its demonstration of an angry drunk when a kid hurled beer bottles at the pick-up window when he swore he was cheated out of a dollar.
While fast food restaurants only cater to students at night through the protection of a small glass window, eateries like IHOP and Denny’s must resume waiting tables even to drunken wrecks. The film “Super Troopers” has ignited a nasty trend of syrup chugging at the International House of Pancakes. IHOP employees said they just shake their heads when they find a table with four empty syrup containers and four groaning Bearkats. One waitress described that while Huntsville has its share of idiots, they still do not match an experience at a Houston IHOP.
“In Houston, this really drunk guy went streaking through a IHOP,” said the IHOP employee, only to leave the best for last. “After he was done, he jumped through the window and left.”
Back in Huntsville, an employee said that obliterated customers consistently invite waitresses to hot tubs and after-club parties. Sometimes they request their hand in holy matrimony. On one occurrence, an inebriated customer went so far as to even ask the manager if the waitress could take off early to go celebrate. The manager replied “why not?” and the waitress has become good friends with the partygoers ever since.
Waiters and waitresses at IHOP and Denny’s both agree that drunks give the greatest tips around. According to them, Bearkats with liquid-smiles do not complain as much and are ecstatic with whatever plate they are served, even if the order was completely wrong.
At Denny’s, a group of four smashed students examined the menu for 20 minutes before coming to the conclusion that it was written in Spanish. A few weeks earlier, a group openly proclaimed that they were porn stars and suggested performing a routine on the bar.
“They probably would have if they were capable of standing,” said a Denny’s employee.
Denny’s attempts to prevent syrup chugging proved futile when students guzzled hot sauce in retaliation. Large groups of partiers are often broken up and asked to sit at tables across the breakfast restaurant, only to begin tossing random objects at each other. Waiters and waitresses admit that these random objects usually pelt their servers in the head as they are trying to serve people. Back at IHOP, some students pay and leave before the food even arrives. When a few Bearkats fall asleep on their menus, one waiter explained that they usually just let them sleep it off. Although he confessed that this is not encouraged, it often gives a drunken student enough time to sober up for the drive home.
Patience and a good sense of humor usually guide fast food and 24-hour restaurant employees through those dreaded day’s students choose to get annihilated. A Wendy’s employee explained that she only hopes the guy that pulled up to the pick-up window with a blow-up doll was intoxicated, but to this day, she cannot be sure. For every party night, there will always be those true American heroes proud to serve you greasy goodness: even if that greasy goodness likely revisits you soon after.