My favorite genre of Facebook post is when cops go out and have some perfectly normal everyday experience where literally nothing happens but then they write about it like it was malevolent and sinister because cops are giant whiny piss babies who live in “sheep, wolves, and sheepdogs” fantasy-land
My man went to McDonald’s and had to wait a few minutes through a rush, which as we all know has literally never happened before in McDonald’s history:
Not surprised. Disappointed to say the least.
***So this is what happened to one of our PBSO family.
Ingnorant people who work at the McDonald’s on okee and 441, west palm beach, FL.
THE POST YOU ARE ABOUT TO READ IS FROM A LOCAL DEPUTY
Hey everyone this is going to be a long post, you are going to want to read it.
So at approximately 3:22 pm, on the way home from my earlier call out (traffic fatality, and notifying the next of kin), after I picked up the kids from my in-laws. I decided to go to a local McDonalds, (9835 Okeechobee Blvd <Okee and 441>) as both kids said they were hungry and wanted chicken nuggets. I figured I could have one or two of theirs, and they wouldn’t be too mad at me for it.
Let me add an important part here, you will see why later, I am in my marked patrol vehicle…
I pull into the drive through, wait behind another car to place my order. When my turn pops up, I place my order:
2 – Ten piece chicken nuggets
1 – Large fry
1 – Medium coke with light ice.
They give me my total on the board $13.34. I pull around to the first window, have to wait a little, then I pull up and hand off my credit card to pay, then its handed back to me. I wait in line to pull up to the pickup window.
Now here is where it gets interesting. (Remember I am in a marked patrol vehicle).
As I pull up to the pickup window, I am greeted by, not one employee, not two employees, but three employees. I am stopped for a few seconds, more than normal, and one of them says to me that they gave my order to another person (an honest mistake, and I have been on the other end of it before). She asks nicely for me to pull up and someone will bring it out to me. I say not a problem, and begin to pull up.
I am stopped there for about 2 minutes, kids are starting to get restless and asking for their food. I then say to myself, mc nuggets are usually plentiful and ready to be ordered, same with fries, same with the coke. I say to myself, I am going to start a timer. I run a three minute timer. This goes by. I say to myself, hmm, okay 5 minutes now.
Yes other cars behind me are coming and going, paying and getting their various bags of food and such.
I say okay, and set another 3 minute timer, because I wasn’t too sure of the two minutes prior. But it was about that.
So now 6-8 minutes have gone by, kids aren’t happy. I throw on my face covering, go inside. Am greeted by a different employee who asks if he can help me. I told him that I was waiting for my drive through order. He asked what it was, and I again told him, 2 ten piece nuggets, 1 large fry, and a medium coke with light ice.
He asks the others that were near the window where the order was, and he walks off toward them, out of my sight. Several seconds go by, and a different employee (now 5th employee in that area alone), looks around, finds a bag. Now fearing that my food was tampered with, I immediately said, please refund my order, I don’t want it. I begin to walk out to my car to get the credit card that I used (with my work id card so I always have a payment method), and return inside.
I put my card in when asked, had to verify my purchase again, then the machine says to remove the card, and I see transaction amount of $13.34. I ask employee 4 for the store manager’s card. He walks to the back of the store before handing me a receipt, and he is gone for approximately 35 seconds.
I am handed a folded piece of paper, with a not legible name and a phone number.
I ask for my copy of the receipt that shows a refund, and am told that it did not process (even though it told me to remove my card).
Again confirming my order. I am processed my refund at 3:29 pm by the employee.
I get in my patrol car, and leave. Kids both crying and upset, asking why they did not get their food. Shamefully, looking for something to tell the kids, I simply say “I do not know, we will find some food somewhere else.”
I couldn’t bring myself to tell them the truth. “We didn’t get our food because we were in a police car.”
Needless to say, I will not be returning to that McDonalds, in a patrol car, nor in my personal car.
i don’t think people get what these fires mean for California.
the fight against climate change is not “for the future” or “coming up”
no. it is now. for california, for me, for the 37 fucking million of us who live here, it is now. it is now. it is fucking now. there is smoke blanketing my entire city. the other day there was ASH FALLING FROM THE SKY. there are people who are living with red, terrifying smoke, right outside their front doors. i can’t open a window because it all smells like a fucking fire. the sky is entirely grey, because it’s all fucking smoke. my entire fucking STATE is affected by this shit. my STATE.
by the way, california? our population is 71% of England’s. an entire country.
and yes, there are issues other than climate change that have caused this shit, of course. but I’ve grown up through two droughts. I’ve watched the fountains in my town get shut down, I’ve watched them grow dusty and old. I’ve fixed my sprinklers to account for the new water restrictions. I’ve grown up knowing each winter was colder, each summer hotter. I’ve grown up seeing this shit.
every year, we come to fire season, and i hope and watch and desperately wish that it’ll be okay. that thousands of people won’t lose their homes this year. that i won’t have to walk home with a red sun blazing over me and smoke so thick i can’t stop coughing. that I’ll be able to step outside and not smell it. that people won’t lose their towns, their belongings, their livelihoods. every damn year.
my entire state is kindling. my friends outside of cali reach out to me about the fires, telling me they hope I’ll be safe. but i can’t go outside without inhaling lungfuls of smoke. i can’t do anything but watch as hundreds of thousands of acres burn.
2.5 million acres have burned this year. million. 2.5 fucking million acres. 20x what burned last year.
my state is on fire. my city is covered in smoke. a one year old boy DIED because of these fires, and who knows how many will join him by the time this is over.
so yes, please, donate. but i am tired as shit of people pretending that wildfires in california should be normal, that this is okay, that this is just “something that happens” no. no. vote for politicians who support renewable energy. vote for politicians who care about climate change. because, in the grand scheme of things, what we need is restrictions and laws and regulations. one person installing solar panels isn’t going to do shit.
those bottom photos are san francisco. my state is burning.
you can donate to help here. but this isn’t something that’ll go away. it’s going to get worse and worse, unless we fucking do something.
tags from @astrum-cipher. this is a huge fucking devastating problem.
I woke up this morning and could see the smoke before I even opened my blinds, just form the yellow quality of the light peeking in under the door. I’m from Oregon. I grew up with a color pallet of grey and green and blue, of rainy winters and forests that are supposed to stay lush through the summer. With this smoke, it’s dark like it is under the blanket of clouds in the winter, but this brings no rain, just ash falling from the sky. I don’t want to open the blinds because the world outside is orange, not green. I don’t want to watch the world I love burn. This is Not Normal.
just wait until the smoke clears. 150,000 acres of the McKenzie corridor is gone, all that green and blue is black now. i’ve driven that road hundreds of times, and i’m going to absolutely fucking weep the next time I go out there.
When I was seven, I heard a strange sound at night, and ran to my mom crying “What’s that noise?”
Rain.
It was rain. And I had never heard it before.
I lived, and live, in the San Francisco Bay Area. I was more familiar with the feeling of an earthquake than the sound of rain.
When I was in college, California was in another drought (funny, how the golf courses and corporate lawns stay emerald green when everything else is dry and dying). I heard out-of-state students comment, during a rare rain shower, “I thought there was supposed to be a drought?” while the rest of us were watching the reservoir levels and hoping for more rain.
But there’s a double-edged sword there, too. If we get enough rain, grasses spring up everywhere and the state is lush and green… until summer, when it dries up and goes golden. And provides acres and acres of tinder and fuel for the inevitable wildfires that come each year.
Climate change is tangible. Each summer is setting new records for heat. Places that used to be comfortable without air conditioning just… aren’t. And with the smoke and the fires, we can’t open a window to get relief.
