Monday, October 15, 2007

3 white rices minus 1

Every Friday, it is a ritual of mine and Sean's to order Thai food. We order the same thing every time: sweet basil with beef and two orders of white rice. We order so often that our address is in their file, along with our credit card info so we just charge it and voila. (perhaps i should not be disclosing this online..hmm.) It's just so delicious and i'm always in the mood for it. We limit ourselves to once a week because i could seriously eat it every night.

Another reason why it's great is they deliver it so fast. I am amazed. I have a theory that when we call, they redirect our call to someone who lives 2 doors down and whose sole job is to have sweet basil with beef and 2 orders of white rice ready Friday nights for when we call. I think the last time we ordered, it was here in 10 minutes.

We occasionally hit a snag, however. And it is this: One order of sweet basil with beef comes with ONE order of white rice. The order of food is sufficient for the both of us except we need one more order of rice. I can't tell you how many times this has created such confusion for people taking our order. I have rephrased it so many times, i have completely run out of possible word combinations to make it any clearer. The dialogue will usually go something like this:

"Hi, I'd like to make an order for delivery."

"Ok, what would you like?"

"I'd like an order of sweet basil with beef. And can i get an extra order of rice?"

"Yes, ok. Sweet basil beef with rice. Thank you" *click*



And then, come to find out, we only have one white rice and we have to run across the street to sketchy chinese place and get some more.

OR, it will go like this:

"Hi, i'd like to make an order for delivery"

"Ok, what would you like?"

"Can i get the sweet basil with beef and also an extra order of white rice?"

"It already comes with one. You want extra?"

"Yes, so two total.."

"Ok, two extra white rice." *click*

"Nooooo!!"


And, sure enough, 3 rices.

Finally, one day i was like, Sean, I HAVE it. The perfect way to say it:

"Can i get the sweet basil with beef and TWO orders of white rice?" thinking the word "extra" may have just been getting in the way.

This worked a few times, no confusion, until...

"You want two? It already comes with one. You want an extra one?"

"yes, please."

"So you want two rices"

"Yes, two."


I mean, it's usually no big deal and they usually give us the correct amount but there's always such confusion on the phone and it's really funny and i have no idea what better way i could say it. maybe i should preface by saying ".. and i know it already comes with one but could i get an additional one along with the original rice that it comes with it, thereby resulting in two total orders of white ricc?"

I dunno.. that doesn't sound good. Any ideas? Maybe next time I'll just walk to the guy's house 2 doors away and get the food myself.

4 comments:

The Gardner Gang said...

Perhaps you could START with ordering the extra order of rice.
"Hi, I'd like to order a side of rice and then also, the sweet basil with beef meal."
It's worth a try.

Brooke said...

Or, take a picture of what you want, take it down there and post it next to their phone with your name and number. Then, you can just refer them to the picture.

"Yes, we're Jen and Sean. We'd like the stuff in the picture. Thanks."

It'll totally work.

Joel said...

This may defeat the purpose, but you could always cook up your own white rice. Duplicating restaurant-style fried rice isn't easy, but you could probably find the same kind of white rice.

)en said...

those are excellent ideas.

we could definitely make our own rice, and easier still, we could literally run across the street and get some from the chinese restaurant. it's just as good. but this is how seriously lazy we are. if you're going to order in, you have to go all the way.

Really what they should do is write down our order next to our phone number in their file because we order the EXACT same thing every. single. time. that would be awesome. "hi, it's me. the usual please. thanks." we'll see.