Ted Carnahan

Jennifer and I stopped a few days ago at Backyard Burgers for a quick dinner, and were behind two people ordering for what I can only guess was a big party or a lot of coworkers. Their bill came to $100, so no wonder it took a while to get everything ordered and prepared. There was a long line forming behind us, but it didn’t seem to me like anyone was in a big hurry. Nevertheless, the manager came around to several of the tables while we were waiting for our food to be brought out and offered us coupons for free burgers to make up for the wait. I wasn’t all that irritated, but that manager definitely went out of his way to make things right, and we appreciated it.

I think that the church can learn from that. We can either put our heads down, do the minimum we can get away with, and be mediocre, or we can go the extra mile by doing our best, putting others first, and trying to make things right when we fail.

Jennifer and I tried really bad food from Red Burrito the other day. I ordered a burrito combo, but instead I got what tasted like leftover burger meat (Red Burrito is co-branded with Hardee’s) wrapped in a dried-out tortilla. It came with plastic beans with cold cheese on top, and some very disagreeable “spanish rice.” It was served with love in a styrofoam to-go container which had the lid ripped off (and in the process, they managed to rip the styrofoam all the way down to the table — mmm, sanitary).

It gets worse. Jennifer ordered “nachos.” It’s very important for you to notice the scare quotes around “nachos.” I generally define nachos, at a minimum, as having chips with cheese on them. There was no cheese on these nachos. When we asked the people at the counter about the cheese, they said that they were out of it. How did the cold cheese get on my beans, then? Edit: They were out of guacamole too. Some nachos!

Red Burrito? More like Wretched Burrito.

Before this morning, I was uninitiated in the ways of tasty goat cheese. Then I combined a HyVee “everything” bagel (sadly unimpressive) with Herb Goat Cheese from Goatsbeard Farm at the Columbia Farmer’s Market. The results were quite excellent, but I think next time I’ll go for a tub (which is spready-er) instead of a round (which is crumbly-er).