I went through a Del Taco drive through on my way to work. I order completely from the value menu, with exception of the drink. I go all out and order a medium soda. I feel like I’m actually getting a value with medium Del Taco fountain sodas. They are quite large. The voice over the speaker comes back at me with a wham doozy.
“Would you like that as a large for the same price?”
I was a little thrown off and respond without even thinking. I told the man…
“Yes, that’s fine.”
I get my drink and fasten it between my legs. It’s kinda big. I’m intimidated. I realize I didn’t even want soda to begin with. I should have just brought water from home. Yet even knowing this, I couldn’t just say…
“No sir. I do not want this free offer of something more.”
Who does that?
I then thought to myself (and by ‘thought’ I mean ’said’, to myself, alone. I talk to myself.)
“You idiot! You don’t have to drink the whole thing AND this doesn’t even fit in your cup holder. LEGIT reason to say ‘no’ to the large.”
But there I was, I would now have that Lake Michigan sized cup sitting near me for the next several hours at work. I’m not going to delude myself into thinking I can trick myself into believing that I have the self control to not drink the whole thing. That’s ridiculous. No self respecting person does that. (Verification: here ‘does that’ means ‘delude themselves’, self respecting people all over the place would absolutely drink that much soda)
I drive the rest of the way, only getting more and more flummoxed. Why does this sort of thing happen. Companies pull off the wierdest stunts. To most people it is probably not that big a deal. But I think the customer/business relationship needs to be a lot more straightforward. Was there an advertisement somewhere about this large for the price of medium deal? Did I just get suckered into something? I spend a lot of time making sure I’m not assuming people are screwing me over constantly. Why did this event still leave me feeling cheated? Maybe its the markup on fountain sodas like that, that bothers me in the first place. I was only being ripped off x190 rather than x200. Plus all that sugar makes me break-out anyway.
-Keegan
(-who hates ending these things with so many question marks)
08/27/09
