Waffles for Dinner; or Why Food Delivery Sometimes Is a Fail

So I got home a little later than expected the other night. And by the time I walked and fed the dog, changed my clothes and settled into my recliner it was at least 9:30, maybe a little later. My wife had an Uber Eats code and suggested we use it to get McDonald's last night. That turned out to be a mistake.

I'm not a big fan of third party food delivery services like Uber Eats and Door Dash, mainly because of the cost. Order twenty dollars worth of food and they'll charge you thirty five dollars. I get it, we're paying for convenience. Yet I'm the guy who'll hop in the car to pick up a pizza to save the three dollar tip and two buck delivery charge. So yeah, in many cases I'll do pick up.

My wife's coupon code for Uber Eats was great. Good enough that using the coupon code and tipping the driver, our food would cost less than if I drove over to McDonald's and picked it up myself. At this point it was around 10:00PM CDT.

So Kathy puts in the order and we watch one of our shows while she keeps an eye on the app. At this point the minutes start ticking away. We finish our one show and put on "Ridiculousness". My wife is getting concerned because a driver hasn't been assigned to pick up the food.

I tell her to relax. The Warrensburg McDonald's drive through can be super busy late nights. More time clicks of the clock. My wife is starting to be concerned and uses the help function on the app. She figures out it seems Uber Eats is having an issue getting a driver to deliver our food. She gives me the option of just forgetting the whole thing and just eating something at home.

I'm tired, but not that tired. And a Big Mac sounds good. So we continue to wait. Then after about an hour, Uber Eats finally throws in the towel and cancel's our order. I get it, if no drivers are working you can't deliver the food. Yet, an hour earlier you let us order it. And kept us on the hook for an hour when, in hindsight, no one was probably working then either.

My wife had a suggestion which I rather liked. If you have a deal they should offer you the deal if you have to go pick it up. Sounded like a good idea at 11:15PM last night. But here's the thing. We had the coupon code because we hadn't used Uber Eats in a couple of years. So of course they want you to use the service. And second, how many people using Uber Eats can't hop in a car or walk to the restaurant to pick up their order? That might just lead to more irate customers.

So what'd we do? Waffles. Threw some Eggos in the toaster and we had dinner ready in about five minutes. And now we have some doughnut money for Sunday morning. Will it be the Donut Cafe or Yummy's? Decisions, decisions.