I’m not proud of this, but I do occasionally visit fast food restaurants,  such as McDonald’s. Mostly, it is for drinks. Now, that may seem stupid, given that you can get a bottled version of the same drink for a lot less (or maybe you can’t – or at least not reliably. Pricing of cola appears to be one of the worlds more baffling algorithms and this could well be the subject of a future blog.)

For now, let’s get back to my attempted
purchase of cola from McDonald’s. There is a reason why I would prefer to buy my soft drinks from a vendor that has it on draught, rather than to simply pop into my local newsagent or supermarket and buy a can or a bottle. That reason  is simple – most fast food vendors serve their soft drinks with ice. I know some people don’t care about this. but they are wrong, and I am right. Look at the image. The ice is what makes this so appealing.

So, I recently stopped at a local McDonald’s and ordered a diet coke. I paid my £1.29 and drove to the next window. The young lady passed me the coke and I gave it a little shake to check there was ice in it. There was not, so I passed it back and asked her to put some ice in it.

Without hesitating, she told me that they did not have any ice.  At that point, I decided that paying £1.29 for a draft carbonated drink without ice just did not stack up, so I asked for a refund. The girl looked a bit confused, but I pointed out that I had believed I was buying a drink with ice and as that was not the case, I would like to have my money back. She disappeared off into the back and I assumed she was seeking advice from a manager. But no, when she reappeared, it was with my drink again, now with a generous helping of ice. It was my turn to look confused. “So you did have ice all along?” I asked, though this was obviously somewhat rhetorical. With no trace of shame, she stated that she had meant she did not have any ice in the tray next to her. I was lost for words, so I just drove off, taking my ice cold drink with me.