David Michael Miller
Our friend Branda turned us on to the kid’s meal at Culver’s.
Branda actually has kids (one of them is even my godchild), and Dianne and I do not. So we would have never known of the kid’s meal or thought to order one until she suggested it.
It’s wonderful. You get a regular size ButterBurger (even with cheese if you want), regular size fries and a soft drink, and, the best part, the meal comes in a bag with a strip that you tear off. This strip contains a coupon for a free scoop of custard and another coupon that you save, and when you collect 10 you get another free kid’s meal. It’s called the “Scoopie Club,” and we are proud members. A couple of times I’ve thrown the bag out without retrieving the strip of joy, and I’ve spent days regretting it.
There are other options for the kid’s meal that are sort of healthier. For example, you could get carrot sticks in lieu of the fries and milk instead of the soda, but to my knowledge nobody does that. I mean, the kind of parents who would make their kids order that kind of thing wouldn’t be in a Culver’s in the first place.
The first time we ordered the kid’s meal we endured some sniggering looks from the kid behind the counter. I wasn’t sure about the rules, so I was ready with a story about our children who were in the car and couldn’t come in because they had some terrible, but highly treatable, infectious disease and this was their last happy hurrah before we turned them in to the hospital where they would spend the next six weeks in a plastic bubble eating only chicken fingers, carrots and milk.
But the story wasn’t necessary. They just handed over the plastic number thing, and our kid’s meals were delivered to our table. We were happy.
But the other day I stopped in at a Culver’s to order the kid’s meals for us while Dianne stayed in the car with our dog, who becomes nervous and irritable whenever she leaves his sight. This time the woman behind the counter asked me about my eligibility for the senior discount.
This was disturbing on a number of levels. For one thing, there’s the incongruousness of ordering the kid’s meal for yourself and then being eligible for the senior discount. It’s like getting a half-priced college education as you collect your Social Security. It feels a little unfair to all the poor saps ages 18 to 64.
But then there was just the way she said it. She didn’t look up, and she didn’t exactly phrase it as a question as in, “senior discount?” She also didn’t quite say it as an agreed-upon fact, “senior discount.” No, it was more like, “senior discount....” The assumption seemed to be that I looked old enough to be eligible for the price break, but I was just marginal enough looking that management would want her to ask.
For a moment I considered laughing lightly and saying something like, “Who me? Oh, no, no. Not for several more years. But my wife, who is in the car, with our sick children, er, grandchildren, she’s old enough!”
It was a good thing that Dianne was in the car because — not to put too fine a point on it — though she is actually older than I am, everyone says she looks quite a bit younger. My guess is that if she had been ordering the kid’s meal at Culver’s without me at her side, she would not have been offered the senior discount. Yet here I stood, a younger man, being asked perfunctorily if I was old enough to get 37 cents off my order.
Grudgingly, I took the discount, not even bothering to ask what the cutoff age was. (Later research indicated that it was only 55 and so yes, technically, at 56 I qualified.)
Apparently, there was an even deeper discount available because the counter person then asked, “military?” I felt better about that question. I thought of James Stewart in Strategic Air Command or John Wayne in The Longest Day or maybe even George C. Scott in Patton. She must see me as the sort of fit, decisive, strong leader who would confidently step up to her counter and order a kid’s meal at Culver’s without a moment’s hesitation or regret.
Sadly, I had to admit the truth. I have never served my country in that capacity. She didn’t seem disappointed. It was as if she suspected as much but thought she’d ask anyway just to make me feel better, like the kids at the liquor store who ask for my ID when I check out. I always pull it out reluctantly and say it’s a fake, and they always kind of laugh as if they hadn’t heard that one about a billion times before from guys my age.
I slinked away from the Culver’s counter, made aware that I was aging, slightly embarrassed to have ordered a meal designed for an 8-year-old and reminded that I was nobody’s idea of a hero. I felt terrible for about a minute. But then I returned to the car, reunited with my young-looking wife and the dog who loves her. I unwrapped my burger and dug into my fries, and I knew that there was fresh custard in my future. I felt better. In fact, I felt like a kid.
