buh?

[rm]

From the department of What Just Happened There?:

So I'm in Chipotle getting lunch. I'm vaguely aware of the woman behind me ordering in that first-timer way that involves loudly reassuring herself about her Chipotle decision making skills ("yeah, the vegetarian, yeah, that sounds good, I think I'll get that. For here.").

As we approach the cash register, she says excuse me to me and I scoot out of her way so that she can reach around behind the counter and grab her side of guacamole. A little weird, I think, but she's new to the place and stuff does go awry sometimes. BUT THEN, she also reaches for her bowl and then trots over to the condiment and soda area (something which requires navigating AROUND the cash register all the people in front of her in line are currently paying at).

She has not paid.

Register guy and I goggle at each other, continue/conclude our transaction and generally keep looking at her. What Should We Do?

I go to get my fork and napkins and the woman has now gone and sat at a table with her food, completely ignorant is seems to the notion that one pays for food.

Being a completely nosy asshole, I go up to her as I'm leaving and I say "generally we pay before we take the food here, they think you stole it."

"What?" she asks. "I don't understand."

"You need to pay. Upfront," I say, pointing.

She shrugged at me, and as I walked by the window once on the outside, I can tell you she was sitting there eating her guacamole and veggie bowl still blithely not paying.

Based on my brief interaction with her, I have no reason to believe there was an English-language difficulty or a confusion about custom (her speech was unaccented and examples of how to go through the line were directly in front of her), although I suppose it's possible. I also have no reason to believe she was someone in need trying to sneak a meal (she was dressed in high-end business attire with jewelry, had a pristine professional manicure, etc), but of course we all know stranger things have happened.

So what just happened there? Chipotle thievery? Epic personal cluelessness? Some weird dare? Narratively underdeveloped performance art? I am confused! And I hope someone actually did something to address the matter.

ETA: Google AdSense, I love you! Ads on this post include "meet gay military men." I hope my Torchwood people are falling all over themselves laughing.

Comments

[msp-hacker.livejournal.com]

What it sounds like to me: She thought that Chipotle's was restaurant, instead of takeout. And was going to pay after the meal, but when you corrected her she refused to be "wrong" and will still pay for her meal after she finishes it.

And now I really want Mexican, or faux!Mexican, as that's all that's available here. ( Afghani? Tibetan? Korean? Yes. Mexican? Or any other Hispanic country? No. )

[valkyrwench.livejournal.com]

Sounds like Epic Cluelessness to me. Really, in that situation, the manager should have addressed it as soon as she walked off with her food.

[count-to-seven.livejournal.com]

First time ordering at Chipotle can be somewhat confusing, but I think the sizable cash register at the end of the line is usually a clue as to how the process ends.

[51stcenturyfox.livejournal.com]

I bet she finished, was given a bill at the table and told the server she wasn't leaving a tip because no one refilled her drink. :D

[frodo-esque.livejournal.com]

The fact that she continued to sit there eating is proof that she's not intentionally trying to be a thief, but I am amazed at her cluelessness!

[kel-reiley.livejournal.com]

my guess: 1st time, missed blatant clues as to how things are done there, then felt embarrassed when you pointed it out and instead of admitting her mistake, she just... er, sat there

[copperbadge.livejournal.com]

I have, on occasion, been so completely lost inside my own head (or momentarily mortified by my inability to converse with someone like a normal person) that I have walked off without paying for:

Food
Groceries
Clothing
Office supplies (this one was particularly hilarious to those around me)

Usually I get stopped before I've gone ten feet by someone yelling "SIR! SIR! YOU FORGOT TO PAY FOR THAT!" I'm perplexed as to why the cashier didn't. It's not like it's all that uncommon for people to do.

But yeah, lady should have got up and gone back to pay when you gave her an out from the embarrassment like that. I'd have taken that gladly.

[saomigray.livejournal.com]

"generally we pay before we take the food here, they think you stole it." is pretty straightforward. I can't imagine how she could misunderstand that.

Since she did order her food, "fr here," she does seem to have understood she was in a fast food place.

I'm voting confusion brought on by low blood sugar.

[baxaphobia.livejournal.com]

Some people are either clueless or just don't give a crap. Sheesh!

[themaskmaker.livejournal.com]

Good for you for saying something, though! You win Grey's Good Citizen-of-the-World Award.

[hughcasey.livejournal.com]

The Google ad at the bottom of my screen for this reads "Delicious Mexican Recipes!", followed by "2 Rules For Belly Fat". LOL

[tacky-tramp.livejournal.com]

Chipotle thievery for sure. When I worked at Whole Foods, professional-looking people were caught stealing all the time. Has nothing to do with need. Sometimes people just want to get something for nothing.

[anotheranon.livejournal.com]

Am I revealing what a total cynic I am by saying that my first reaction was "some people are just jerks"? I sincerely hope it was a case of cluelessness.

[lyorn.livejournal.com]

Absent-mindedness can cause a person to do amazingly stupid things, and be completely oblivous to any input which is not expected. If her script was firmly set to "eat, then pay", and her mind was elsewhere, she actually might not have noticed anything wrong.

If it was absent-mindedness, I hope someone *did* manage to get through to her, for her own sake. My grand-aunt nearly died of mortification when she realized, a day after the fact, that she had walked out of her favourite café without paying. She sent a letter with a an apology and a cheque of roughly three times the bill and never dared to set foot in that café again.