Today I face an ethical dilemma. It may not seem like much and you may think you have the “best” answer but like many things, it’s a personal problem I have to address and overcome. However, I would like your input.

I went to lunch at one of the finer dining establishments in my fair ville today. Okay, it was the Del Taco drive-through but it was still better than the batch of plain brown rice I’m making for dinner tonight. Anyway, allow me to start with a complaint: People.

I am not better than you. I do not for one second believe you exist to serve me and make my life comfortable and do my bidding. We all have daily trials as much as we have daily victories. If I can help you with a trial or walk with you through hardship, ask. I would love nothing more than to help you celebrate a victory, regardless of its size. We all need victories. But there are those among us that turn their trials or hardships into true tests of courage, patience and restraint for the rest of us. Yes, I’m talking about the people who can’t make up their minds at the fast-food drive-through order kiosk.

My kids have heard me say often enough, “It’s a McDonald’s. The menu didn’t change from when you were here two days ago.” Substitute your favorite fast-food establishment as appropriate and it still holds true. To be fair, some very popular regional restaurants with the drive-through option may be unknown to visitors. For example, here in Southern California’s Inland Empire we have a chain of restaurants called Farmer Boys. I would not expect a NASCAR-loving, beer-swilling, cigarette-smoking, country music-listening, drawl-speaking, Pro Rodeo-watching visitor from Alabama to know about Farmer Boys. For that matter, I was flabbergasted by the sheer volume of Bojangle’s restaurants (one on every corner) when I toured through the Carolinas a couple of years ago. Regional is regional. I get that. And stupid generalizations are stupid, but it helped paint a picture for you.

As far as I’m concerned, you go to a drive-through for speed as well as convenience. The spelling “thru”, to me by the way, conveys a unique sense of ignorance like writing “ok” when the word is spelled “okay”. But I digress. Since you’ve chosen the drive-through option, the issue of consistency has been established. You wouldn’t go to Subway looking for a bucket of chicken just like you wouldn’t go to KFC looking for a roast beef sandwich. You chose that restaurant’s drive-through because you know what they sell and you want it faster and in a more convenient manner than going inside.

Assuming you’ve never been to a Pup-N-Taco before, I have a high amount of confidence your first visit would not be through the drive-through. Even if you’ve heard great things about the place, you’ll want to take a minute to peruse the menu and make a selection from what “sounds” good or what you see others eating. The first-time interaction of seeing the menu, seeing the kitchen layout, getting an overall “feel” for the place and taking in the sounds and smells will establish a baseline from which you will later judge your subsequent drive-through experience. Again, I think the chances of you going to Pup-N-Taco your first time and ordering something at the drive-through kiosk simply because I said you might like it are slim.

Oh, but there are those who live to prove me wrong. In fact, I sat behind one today for quite some time. It’s a freaking Del Taco. Like Taco Bell, they serve pretend Mexican food. Nothing (except the salsa, maybe) is hand-made. It’s all processed, pre-packaged crap from somewhere else. In my mind it’s like a scene from The Simpson’s. They go to the county fair and all the different ethnic groups have food tents from which you can order their country’s specialty. All the orders are routed through one location and filled by someone dipping a ladle into a cauldron of something and pouring it into a bowl or plate. This is then placed on a tray and taken by conveyer belt back to the tent from which the order was placed. That pretty much describes fast-food drive-through restaurants in general: Generic slop from somewhere else presented to you at their window.

First-time visitor or someone looking for a change of pace, I don’t know. But the woman today did as much to delay the progress of mankind in general as possible. She could not decide. I could understand if she had kids in the car and wanted to keep everyone happy. It didn’t appear as though she did. I could also understand if she had multiple people in the car (like a church car pool or something) and everyone wanted something unique. She looked like she was alone. Alone and curious.

“What comes with a number five?” Well, let’s see. There’s a picture of it not three feet in front of you. It looks like it comes with a this, a that, and a thingamajig. “Oh, I don’t want that. What comes with a number six?” Well, here in Western society we often treat things in a linear, progressive manner. I’ll look either right next to or immediately below the number five and–oh, there it is, the elusive number six. Huh. The picture indicates it contains a whozit, a whatzit and a whachamacallit. “Okay, I’d like a number six but what comes on the whozit?”

I know the eight inch by eight inch picture does not have the finest detail in the world, but it looks like a burrito that contains ground beef, refried beans, cheese, a hot sauce of some type and a tortilla. “Instead of ground beef can I get chicken?” Why yes, you can. We call it the number eleven. “What comes with the number eleven?” A chicken whozit, a whatzit and a whachamacallit. “Oh, okay. Yes, I’d like the number eleven with chicken. And instead of the whachamacallit can I change it to a thingamajig?” Yes, you can do that.

But now you’re off the regularly numbered combination menu and into our entree menu items. If you substitute the whachamacallit for the thingamajig it’s thirty cents extra. “Okay, let’s do that. And can I get that with the really large drink?” Yes, but that will be an additional fifty-five cents. Your total is seven dollars and sixteen cents. Will that be all for you today or would you like to try a tooth-rotting straight sugar dessert? “No, that’s it. Thank–Oh, wait! Can I substitute my large drink for a shake?” And on it went until she finally nit-picked her order to get exactly what she wanted.

So, having had enough time to become fairly well acquainted with every detail of the backside of her vehicle, she pulled forward. She left the comfort of the drive-through kiosk and entered the frightening (yet aptly named) Realm of Reality: The left turn to the window.

I have a fairly hard and fast rule of driving any vehicle. To keep this rule means you have demonstrated the aptitude and higher-level thought processes required of a licensed driver. To violate this rule you must, at some point, be punished. The rule: If you can’t park it, you can’t drive it. No, she wasn’t trying to park her vehicle. She was trying to negotiate a single left turn so she could enter the straight-away in front of the payment window. But if you can’t do that simple task I guarantee you she could not parallel park that vehicle.

She was in a Cadillac SUV that clearly was too much for her. I don’t care about the make of car she drove. It could have been a 1970s-era Chevrolet Suburban or her 2012 Cadillac. The point is that the vehicle greatly exceeded her driving ability. Someone should have taken the keys away from her. Unlike Disneyland, the Realm of Reality does not allow for a center rail down the lane which takes control of your vehicle and keeps you pointed in the correct direction if you over- or under-steer. Unlike the go-cart track, you can’t just keep your foot on the gas, bumping off one curb to the other until the ride’s done. You have to actually participate in and learn from the driving experience.

No kidding, I’ve seen guys in trucks with trailers go through a drive-though without rubbing rubber on either the truck or the trailer. The woman today turned a simple left turn into a twelve-point back-and-forth event from which I was getting sick watching. The fact she was a woman had nothing to do with it. The fact that she did not have confidence and or experience in what she was doing is the bigger issue. I’ll bet she took her driving test in a small sub-compact car she borrowed from someone. There is no way she parallel-parked a vehicle the size of a Jawa Sandcrawler when she took her driver’s test.

But that’s not my issue today. That was a minor annoyance that did nothing but cause me to re-think my food choice and hope to be good later on. Today’s event happened at the window.

I pulled up and recognized the same voice from the squawk-box as belonging to the kid hanging out the window looking for payment. I handed him my credit card and he handed me my beverage. He disappeared for a moment and re-appeared with a straw before once again returning to his spider hole. A short while later another uniformed person appeared and handed me my lunch order. She wished me a good day and started to shut the window. I asked for if she had my credit card and she held it up, saying, “This one?”

Seriously, what would she have done if I said, “No, the other one?” I was the only one in line. Specifically, I was the only one at the window. Do they have a bunch of cards they’ve kept from other customers? Is there a little bucket of unclaimed ATM, debit and credit cards on the other side of the window I can’t see? What kind of question is that, “this one?” Anyway, I told her yes, that was the one.

Then she asked for my name. What? It didn’t matter one iota to them who I was when I handed them the card in the first place. I could have charged twenty five dollars worth of tacos and burritos and they would not have asked to see my identification, let alone asked my name. Assuming she was the new window HMFIC (Head Mother Flunkee In Charge), I told her my name. I was tempted to say Al Sharpton or Huey Lewis but I didn’t. I don’t think she would have seen the humor as much as I. With my name (luckily) matching what was written, the card was returned and I drove off.

Then it occurred to me that I never received a copy of my receipt. I would have expected it with the drink, but I received the drink concurrent with issuing the card. The next opportunity would have been when I was given the straw. But all I received was the straw. As I returned to my combination office / dungeon, I started thinking that I didn’t see the girl put a receipt in the bag. That started my first pangs of guilt: What if I hadn’t paid for my meal? Not wanting to dwell on it, I pushed it out of my mind until I sat at my desk.

There is no receipt anywhere in the bag. I never received one. So, did the first guy run my card and just forget to give me a receipt? I won’t know until Monday. I know the girl didn’t run my card.

I am not as happy as I might have been when I was younger, glad that I had a “free meal” because they screwed up. I have no idea what policy Del Taco has regarding “short” cash drawers at the drive-through. It really bothers me to think that some kid might get docked the cost of at least my meal because he got involved in something else and didn’t run my card. That one issue alone is my problem. Kid number one did what you would expect: He repeated my total and took my card. Kid number two did what you might expect: Saw a card on a ledge inside the store and returned it, perhaps assuming the card had already been run.

Am I going to go back to the store and have them “Z”-out a register so I can pay them and feel better? No. Am I going to take the money I would have paid them and buy lunch for someone else? Maybe, but that won’t relieve me of my concern. And no, I’m not going to give you the money and let you “take care of it” on my behalf.

Seriously, what would you do? I can’t just let this one go. Potentially there’s one, maybe two, high school students trying to make something of themselves on a Sunday afternoon who might have to pick up the cost of my lunch. I feel like I just did a dine-and-dash, only much worse. If I had intentionally deceived or defrauded them out of the cost of my lunch, I am totally responsible. If they had handed me my lunch and never asked for my card it doesn’t change the result: I know I should have paid but I didn’t even make an attempt. This is different.

I tried to pay. For all I know, I did pay and they just didn’t give me a receipt. I am certain some of you will tell me just to suck it up and enjoy the free food, but I’m interested in hearing from the more mature and responsible readers I know are out there. What would you do?