"Yo quiero Taco Bell."

Over the summer we went to the redwood forest. Those trees were magnificent! I really enjoyed that experience. The one unpleasant incident on that trip occurred at the Taco Bell in Crescent City, CA.

Crescent City is not a large town, and thus the restaurant selection left much to be desired. In the end we decided that you can't go wrong with Taco Bell. Little did we know. We went inside, I quickly decided what I wanted to order, told Clark, and made a trip to the restroom. There was no line to order, so I figured when I came back out the food would be ready to eat. WRONG. When I came back out, the first person in our party was still ordering. They would say something and it would take a good 3 minutes for her to find it on the register. In her defense, I think it was this girl's first day and she was left alone at the register, but still. Even if it was your first day, it shouldn't take that long. And in the end nobody got what they ordered, there were things missing, things nobody ordered. Oh well, we all got something in our bellies and finally got out of there.

Fast forward to yesterday. We went to the Taco Bell here in St George yesterday with my parents. Nobody was there because it was 4:30, so we're all trying to decide what we want, when the girl at the register pipes in, "Well, since you are all here, let me tell you about the promotion we are having." Then my dad had a question about a certain menu item, she answered it best she could, and then found a more complete answer. Then my mom asked another question. With every order she asked if we'd like a drink cup for water. She was almost too polite. The way she was saying things made Clark and I look at each other and say, "Is she for real?" She just seemed so excited about getting us the food we wanted. She even made sure to give my dad a senior citizen discount (which seems so bizarre to me, my parents are senior citizens?) Then we looked at her name tag: Service Champion. Now, normally I would just think that Taco Bell is trying to spice things up for their employees with some dumb phrase like that, but no, she really was a service champion, it's the best way to describe her. And it was completely the opposite experience of the Crescent City fiasco.

The moral of the story: Go to Taco Bell in St George. Don't go to Taco Bell in Crescent City. Or in the Northeast. (On a slightly different note, Taco Bell wanted to make it clear that they would not be removing lettuce from their menu. I would like to say that if they did, I would be more likely to eat there.)