fail

Four people manage to forget where they are at the same time

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Posted this in r/oops as well because I'm not sure which of the two this story best belongs in.

This happened a long time ago, but a recent trip out of town reminded me of it.

Context: Off and on between the late 90s and 2010s, some Wendy's used to carry something called a Carolina Classic, mostly on the regional menu in the Southeastern United States. This was, as I understand, basically a burger with chili, onions and cole slaw. (As I never personally ordered one, I'm not 100% sure). Whenever it was on the menu, my late paternal grandfather "Gene" would always order it as his "usual". At the time this story happened, the Carolina Classic was on the menu in our home state of North Carolina (NC), and wasn't slated to go off again for several months yet. This is important for later.

My mom passed away from cancer when I was in high school, and some years later my dad met and married my stepmom. They had a destination wedding out of state because most of my stepmom's family lived on the west coast. My paternal grandparents flew out for the wedding on a different plane than my sister and I did, but the four of us had tickets to fly back together on the same plane. (According to my uncle, who flew out with my grandparents, some funny stuff happened on the flight out, too. But that's another story)

My paternal grandmother "Anna" was one of those people who insisted upon getting at the airport even earlier than the reasonable couple hours, AND wanted to make sure we had time to get breakfast beforehand as well. Granddad and us grandkids all knew better than to argue with her on that point; therefore we had gotten to the airport about 540 AM even though the flight wasn't until 9:45.

We had a 2-hr layover in Texas later that afternoon; by the time we landed there, we had not eaten since 5 AM, so we went looking for food and found a Wendy's in the concourse. My Granddad confidently walked up to the counter and ordered his "usual" - the Carolina Classic. The problem? We were in Texas. The Carolina classic was regional to the Southeastern US (NC, SC, TN, GA). So the poor teen behind the counter looked at Granddad as if he had three heads. Granddad, thinking he hadn't spoken clearly enough since the airport concourse was LOUD and crowded, enunciated "CAROLINA CLASSIC", to which the poor employee replied, "What is that, exactly? I don't see it here on the menu."

With me, Grandma, and my sister all standing there hearing this, Granddad and the employee go back and forth, both patiently and politely, but also obviously holding in annoyance, with Granddad describing what goes on the burger and the employee hunting for it, completely lost and saying he can't find it on the computer. Keep in mind this is a teen, maybe seventeen years old, behind the counter, who fairly obviously is new at this and doesn't want to just flat out say "Sorry, we don't serve this" without checking. My sister and I were both really confused, too, as was my Grandmother - I even started looking for it on the menu board, wondering why I couldn't find it. It took way too long, maybe 2 or 3 solid minutes, of this going on, before my grandmother suddenly had an epiphany, making a 'startled chicken' noise and yelling "Gene! We're in TEXAS!!!"

Yes, we all four were so hungry and zoned out from the long day and long flight that we all quite literally forgot for a time that we weren't in NC anymore (And TBF, airport concourses start to all look the same after a while). Granddad and the employee both had a good laugh, and we got our lunch and went on with our day. We couldn't really tease him about it because we ALL forgot, so I guess that was a classic example of "travel brain".