Act 3, Scene 13: “Drive Through”

S’s friend Ami just had a little baby girl, and S, mindful of all the help TRL and S got from friends after they took C&E home from the hospital, told Ami they would be delivering dinner to her, her husband, mother, and their 2-year old daughter. In San Francisco, TRL and S initially had their families helping them as they adjusted to life with two tiny howling bundles of children. But the families soon left back for the East Coast, and that is when the friends stepped in, organizing different days when different friends would deliver food to the house. They wouldn’t stay long, just a hi, some words of encouragement, and the meal. After TRL and S had been up for hours and hours performing all the duties of new parenthood – the diapers and feeding and bathing and holding and rocking and soothing and cleaning up, with little or no time for their own feeding or showering or sleeping – these meals from friends were emotional life savers. So S, being S, wanted to do the same for her friends.

Let’s just go to Trader Joe’s and pick something up, suggests TRL, because they needed to go to Trader Joe’s anyway to do their own shopping.

Pick something up, like a frozen pizza or something, S responds acidly. Come on. That’s not dinner. I’ll call Bertucci’s.

Thirty minutes later, TRL pulls the Volvo wagon into Bertucci’s, an upscalish Italian chain.

They said to park in the marked spots, says S, as she points TRL into a parking spot marked “For Pick-up Only.”

They said they’ll come out to us, she adds.

TRL puts the car in park and immediately puts his hand above the horn, ready to pounce.

No, says S. They said they will be able to see us.

Yeah, right, says TRL, his hand perched over the horn, itching to press into it. But 10 seconds later a smiling teenager in a black waiter outfit comes outside and walks up to the car. TRL rolls down the window.

Order for S?

Yes, says TRL, shocked at the apparent efficiency.

The teenager smiles again and hands over a check. S offers a credit card and the waiter goes back inside.

See, says S.

Hmmm, mutters TRL, thrilled but also still cynical. He slides down in the seat, getting ready to enjoy the down time waiting for the food to come out. The boys in the back are quiet, and the sun is out. But almost immediately the waiter comes out again holding two bags and that smile. TRL sits up.

Ahhh, we should put it in the back, TRL says as the waiter comes to the car. S prepares to hop out but stops at the waiter’s insistence. He then pops open the rear door and slides in the food. He comes around to the front and through the open window hands in the credit card and check. S signs, the waiter smiles and walks back inside, and then stillness. In two minutes, the entire transaction has been completed. And TRL didn’t have to leave his seat. He wonders if for a further service charge the restaurant might chew the food for them as well as drop it down their throats. This was the car hop in the 21st century. Brutally efficient, one didn’t have to leave the comfort of one’s car or have any social or physical interaction with the world beyond the environmentally-controlled auto bubble. TRL had already decided to come back on his own to order dinner. Maybe he would bring a portable DVD player and he could have a little drive-in experience. He wondered if the management might get pissy if he sat in the “For Pick-up Only” parking spot for two hours.