It started out like any ordinary Daddy/Daughter Day. Honestly, I don't know why we bother to call it that anymore since Mommy comes to lunch with us now. She used to work days and now she works from mid afternoon into early evening. But the name stuck and every day off from work I have that my daughter doesn't attend her preschool, we call Daddy/Daughter Day and celebrate by having lunch out somewhere together. On that particular Daddy/Daughter Day, things were already taking a strange turn of events. We usually pick between two restaurants, one a sit-down, full-menu, pizza joint and the other, a fast food burger joint... that flame broils. When asked where she wanted to go that day, she opted for the other fast food burger joint that doesn't flame broil. I immediately grimaced.

"No, Honey," I said. "Daddy doesn't want to go there."

Her four-year-old eyes looked up at me and made the saddest most pleading expression a father could ever stand to see on the face of his children. "Please, please, oh please, Daddy!" she begged.

Who could argue? I'm putty in her hands and the terrible truth is she already knows how to control this.

Now between the two more popular fast food burger joints, I'm not really a fan of either one. I generally opt for the sit down pizza joint with no playzone/playground that distracts my impressionable daughter's attention away from eating her lunch. This way, I can even have a beer with lunch and coerce her into eating using petty bribery. For example, "I'll get you a balloon if you're a good girl and eat all your lunch," or "We'll stop and buy a new movie on the way home if you're a good..." you get the idea. However, because of our geographical situation, we have to travel two towns south to any restaurants, and in that town, one of these burger joints just runs better than the other. Not to mention the quality of the food is a little better... not much, but a little.

The second odd thing that occurred that day was my wife claiming she didn't think she was going to join us. Sure, I thought to myself. Who could blame her? I gave her an indignant look for her obvious treachery and cowardice. She smiled in return. Uhuh. It's not hard to distinguish where my daughter gets her intelligence and savvy from. However, by the time I had starting the truck up on that cold winter day, my wife decided... either she felt guilty enough about her abandonment or she was genuinely hungry. I thought she must have been really hungry, on the verge of starvation, considering the option of our destination. Or... really guilty for that matter. So, she went out and started her vehicle. We drive in separate vehicles and she's already close to her work and can head straight there after lunch, then my daughter and I continue on with the remainder of our ritualistic day together.

Upon arrival, I'm still not coveting the fact we're where we are, but I browsed my numbered options across the menu board while watching the sole male cashier taking the one person's order ahead of us. It's extremely obvious this kid was very uncomfortable doing what he was doing and the fact that he hadn't been doing it very long is equally apparent. A rotund man standing in what I would consider management garb was standing behind the cashier and making himself look busy in an attempt to ignore the growing line of hard-up lunch incumbents beginning to form behind us. I guess we had actually arrived someplace "on time" for once, but the cashier was still over his head getting the order of the one person in front of us. And for the record, I don't think that person was ordering for more then himself. Anxiety drained the already pallid color from the poor kid's face. Now instead of finding the location of the numbered lunch the guy in front of us ordered on the computer keyboard, all he could focus on is how long clearing the line is going to take because everyone behind him is ignoring him. Sad. Finally, the rotund manager turned around without looking at any of us customers about to spend our hard earned dollars in the establishment that he controls, and instead of showing the kid where the button is, just pressed it himself and resumed putting a precarious bag of fries in a take-out bag and handing it to the drive-thru window clerk who appeared just as lost as the cashier. This was not a good choice, I thought to myself, but my daughter is ecstatic looking at the options of cheap and ineffective toys to have placed in her kid's meal. Some of the simplest forms of entertainment seem to thrill the young and innocent more than any technical toy... that is, until they reach a certain age. So, I should be thankful that she's not asking me for the more expensive ones at this point and relish the time I have left.

After a couple of minutes, my daughter was getting antsy and the line was still growing and I considered hopping over the counter and finding the button for a medium soft drink for the cashier. My wife whispered into my ear what her choice for lunch was and what to order our daughter and I realized that I was being abandoned once again to face the challenges of ordering fast food all by myself. I looked at her with a degree of my own anxiety and she raised her eyebrows apologetically and said, "She has to go to the bathroom." Uhuh. Being a woman, she knows full well that the lesser of two evils for a guy is to remain alone in the lunch line and become the next victim of the cashier's ignorance than it is to take my daughter to the... I can barely even say it... men's room. I watched them pull away as if I just fell off a cliff and even though they're the ones that are moving, I felt like I was the one heading for imminent danger.

"Next." I heard announced. I looked at the kid and he was looking at me, wide-eyed, like I was Ghengis Kahn. I guess I can come off looking a bit intimidating sometimes. I just can't help it. I ordered my two numbered choices and I'm not so sure it wasn't the fear of God this kid had over me that seemed to motivate him a little more, but he found them on the keyboard relatively quick. I ordered the kid's meal with the chocolate milk and while I'm waiting for him to find those buttons, I realized he was already looking at me with confidence building waiting for the next selection. Was he thinking I was easy? Oh yeah, Punk, I thought to myself... how about a fish sandwich on the side? Can you find that? He did.

"Is that all?" he asked with more confidence.

How about I hit you so hard the manager gets a bloody nose? That thought, those words had already formed in my head and were right on the tip of my tongue, but I successfully suppressed them back. The kid had done well. "Yes," I simply said instead.

"That'll be blah, blah, blah." I didn't listen to the total. I was holding the handy ATM card and waiting for the calculator sized pad to tell me when to swipe my card. When it did, I swiped.

CARD READ ERROR, PLEASE TRY AGAIN.

Now why can't they make these card swipe machines universal, I was thinking to myself as I flipped the card the other way, every place you go so us poor customers don't have to figure out which way to place the cards. Are those illustrations really supposed to help? I swiped again with the card flipped over.

CARD READ ERROR, PLEASE TRY AGAIN.

I could hear the lunch line behind me groan. I looked desperately at the kid. Now, my anxiety was building and I looked at him to save me. How the winds of change seem unforgiving sometimes.

"Can I just punch these numbers in manually somehow...?" I ask, "Maybe my strip is a little worn."

Okay, the fact of the matter is that I had already known my strip was a little worn. It works most places and EVERY gas pump. So why not right then? I use it a lot, what can I say? I keep it on my wallet, unprotected. It's most likely the wallet pocket that I keep it in that has worn the strip, but it could be the use, too. It's not like they make some protective prophylactic to keep credit cards in when placing them in wallets. Maybe I should invent one. But right then, at that moment, it was already too late in development.

My question went completely ignored. Now the kid could feel my temper rising and had seemed to master the art of ignoring me and looking at his computer keyboard as if it might just verbally tell him to go ahead and let me punch my numbers in. I was suddenly imagining the manager facilitating a meeting in the morning with all his employees before they opened and reminding everyone of their restaurant credo... "Ignore the customer and their questions long enough and they will just go away eventually."

"Try it again," he said with his voice wavering after hitting some button on the keyboard. The Easy Button, I wondered? I swiped.

CARD READ ERROR, PLEASE TRY AGAIN.

I flipped and tried again.

CARD READ ERROR, PLEASE TRY AGAIN.

Audible groans where expressed behind me and I felt that I might be lynched by the crowd at any moment. I didn't have cash, but I had another credit card... completely maxed out and I didn't really want to pay interest for lunch. Not at that place! I looked desperately around the restaurant for my wife. Certainly she had to be done with our daughter and be wondering why I was taking so long. She wasn't in sight.

I gave the kid my best Clint Eastwood's Dirty Harry Callahan look. "Go ahead, Punk, ignore my question again." Once again, the words were stifled at my lips, but already in the forming stage. He must have felt them.

"This guy's card won't work," he said to the manager practicing his very own credo to the utmost expertise. The manager looked at him as if my card had just been declined and then he finally made eye contact with me, but then realized the error of his way. Turning his attention back to the kid, he hit his own Easy Button on the keyboard. His expression did little to instill any more confidence to me about what he was doing than the cashier he was replacing.

"Try it now," said the manager.

I swiped.

CARD READ ERROR, PLEASE TRY AGAIN.

I flipped and swiped.

CARD READ ERROR, PLEASE TRY AGAIN.

I audibly proclaimed the fact that I was aware of the Lord's name and also knew what his middle initial was... in vain. I will certainly pay penance for that.

"Can I just punch in my numbers manually?" I asked getting my face as close to his as I could possibly get in a threatening stance. He practiced his credo. If you ignore them, they will go away. I suddenly envisioned Michael Douglas in the movie "Falling Down" while he attempted to order breakfast one minute late at one of these fast food joints that they fictionalized for the movie. "Whammy Burger" was the name they used and I suddenly felt like going "Whammy Burger" on this manager. I was pretty sure I didn't have a duffel bag full of automatic weapons however. I always forget something when we leave the house.

Then, three things happened within seconds. The assistant manager who was not only married to the manager, but also made it aware that she wore the pants in the family, came out from behind the cooking area to see why the entire foyer was filled with people standing there like some bad zombie movie by George Romero. Her first instinct was the same as her husband's and then it became immediately aware to me why she had decided to say "I do" to this man at the altar. Obviously, I had made an order and my credit card had been declined. If you ignore them, they will go away.

"No!" I protested. "Can't I just punch my (expletive) numbers in manually? I see numbers on this pad. I bet they're there for some purpose. Can't you hit something to activate manual entry, for the love of Saint Peter and all of these groaning zombies behind me?" Okay, maybe I didn't use those exact words.

She simply looked at her husband and he immediately returned to bagging fries and burgers and handing them to the drive-thru clerk. She then, looked at the kid and told him to return to the register.

"You'll have to eliminate some of his order and make it less than twelve dollars in order to process it," she said to him.

What? This all took place in seconds, mind you. The second thing that happened was I submissively pulled out my maxed credit card obviously quite unhappy with her decision and swiped the card waiting for that to be declined and physically grabbed by the crowd of people behind me and hung from the flag pole in the front of the restaurant parking lot.

TRANSACTION COMPLETE.

The kid was punching buttons when I did that. Stop doing that, I thought. I want all the (expletive) food.

The third thing that occurred was my wife and daughter finally returned to the counter. She looked at me as if I was inept at ordering food in a timely fashion not fully understanding the debacle I was in.

"Do you have your ATM card?" I asked her somehow unaware I was just approved. Why was I unaware? I don't know. Perhaps I was secretly enjoying the humiliation and was in denial about it finally coming near an end. The fact was, I was frazzled and visions of zombies and restaurant personnel being blown away with weapons of mass destruction that I had carried into the place in my own duffel bag were running through my head.

"We're about to go to (The Other Fast Food Burger Joint)!" I proclaimed so everyone in the place could hear me. How do you like them apples everyone?

She handed me her card. It's the same account as my ATM card. We're married. Why did I swipe it? I don't know. I swiped it. My brain screamed for me to stop, but I ignored it. Was the restaurant's credo contagious?

TRANSACTION COMPLETE. TWICE NOW, STUPID!

"Honey," I said completely broken, "I think that credit card machine just called me stupid."

"Go sit down with her," said my wife referring to our daughter while placing a reassuring hand on my shoulder. "I'll wait for the food and the voided transaction."

So I grabbed my daughter's hand and started to walk towards the back of the restaurant so I could get... away from peering eyes of hatred from the lunch line zombies. Away from it all. And as we turned the corner, out of sight, I thought for one brief moment that I could hear applause as I heard the cashier say...

"Next."