Seven Baseball Terms I Use to Describe Drive Thrus

I eat from places with drive thrus a lot.  I mean it.  A lot.  As in, I won’t be surprised if I have a heart attack on my 30^th birthday.  In fact, I go to drive thrus enough that I’ve come up with my own little language to describe my experience in a drive thru.  And inspired by using baseball terms to describe stages of sexual relationships, I’ve used baseball terms to make up this language.

So here they are, the Seven Baseball Terms I Use to Describe Drive Thrus.

1) THE BASES

I don’t watch Baseball, and I’m pretty sure I still know more than whoever made this chart.

Alright, so I might as well start off with the most basic point and the point that forms the foundation for which the rest of the points are based on.  Hmm, actually it might be fun to make you read the whole article and then find out what the foundation for it all is…  No, probably not.  Anyway, the Bases are equivalent to the different key spots of the drive thru.

A) At Bat

At bat is the menu with the intercom.  This is where you place your order, and it is your only chance to hit your order out of the park.  Or something like that.

B)   First Base

First base is the first window.  This is the window where you pay for your meal and the person who you heard on the loudspeaker is standing.  Regardless of whether or not the restaurant uses their first window, or if they even have one (I’m looking at you Taco Bell), the first window is First Base.  I’m still not completely sure why McDonalds is pretty much the only restaurant that still realizes that the first window is optimal for getting people through quickly, but that’s a blog for another day.

C) Second Base

Second Base is the awkward position between the two windows.  Most restaurants get the spacing on this a little bit off and aren’t able to actually hold a car at second base, but I still count it. 

D) Third Base

Third Base is the second window.  This is the window where the give you your food.  There’s really nothing more to say about this window.  Third Base is my favorite stop on the drive thru.

E) Home Plate

Making it back to home plate is the equivalent of finally exiting the drive thru.  Congratulations, you’ve just scored a run for your team.

2) HOME RUN

Ok, I know I know more about baseball than this guy.

Remember back in the good old days when heat lamps were used and nobody really cared about how fresh their burger was?  I remember when the Carl’s Jr. near my house had a 3-minute clock at the drive thru window and if the clock hit zero, you got a coupon for a free burger on your next visit.  This is why I am calling a Home Run when you are still able to make it from ordering your food to leaving the drive thru in less than three minutes.  Unfortunately, you don’t get that free burger for missing the 3-minute window anymore though.  Sad day.

3) GRAND SLAM

God bless America, and God bless Denny’s.

Now, if you follow baseball at all or have ever researched the etymology of the greatest breakfast in the history of the world, you can probably go ahead and guess what a Grand Slam in the drive thru world might be.  In the sport of baseball and in the sport of professional drive thruing, a grand slam is a home run hit while the bases are loaded.  So if you drive up to your drive thru to discover that there is someone paying, someone sitting in the awkward second base slot, and someone receiving their food and you are still able to leave the drive thru in under three minutes, you have just hit a grand slam.  Congratulations.  Eat your Double Whopper with a sense of victory, pride, and accomplishment.

4) STEALING A BASE

That doesn’t look right…

Stealing a base in my code system is basically anytime you skip any of the bases outlined above.  It’s a little bit of a stretch, since you really can’t steal first base, but that’s the base you’re most likely to skip in the drive thru.  A lot of restaurants either don’t have or don’t use their first window, so it’s pretty likely you’re going to steal first.  Second is also somewhat likely, since a good number of restaurants don’t space their first and second windows out far enough for a full car.

5) ON DECK

The only picture from page one that wasn't Zach and Cody.  Sad day indeed.

Not all restaurants use this, but they should.  On deck is the menu that doesn't have an intercom attached to it.  This menu comes before the primary menu and is extremely useful in eliminating roughly 33% of all Extra Innings cases.  (See point #7)

6) STRIKING OUT

Statistically, there’s about a 132% chance of me striking out.

For whatever reason, a Strikeout happens when you enter a drive thru and then leave without any food.  Perhaps you realized you didn’t have enough cash on you.  Or maybe you got to the menu and realized Long John Silvers wasn’t really what you had in mind when you thought of stomach cramps.  But whatever the reason is, you just made a fool of yourself and everyone in line is silently mocking you for entering the drive thru and then not following through.  It’s like when we mock A-Rod for getting paid millions to play baseball and then not being able to hit the ball.  What a jerk.  Not that I could do any better though…

7) EXTRA INNINGS

Google Image Search really confuses me sometimes.

It’s really rather unfortunate when someone makes things go longer than they should.  Which is exactly why going into extra innings is lame.  Especially when I’m waiting for my Double Down from KFC.  Oh, dang.  See how nicely I pulled that all together?  Anyway, the way you can send a drive thru into extra innings is when you irritate the people behind you by ordering something that completely ruins anyone’s chances at the 3-minute window.

Basically there are three major party fouls that you can pull when using a drive thru.  And they all basically boil down to improper use of the drive thru.  It is an express lane, not an “I’m too lazy to go in and order” lane.  The carpool lane, the 10 items or less lane, and the drive thru were three things created to make things go faster, not to facilitate it your laziness.  Anyway, here are the three party fouls.

A)   Not knowing what you want to order when you get to the drive through.  Please don’t sit at the menu trying to figure out what looks good.  It’s Dairy Queen.  They have burgers and ice cream.  Pick something and move along.

B)   Large orders – If you’re ordering more food than food for the driver and shotgun, park the car and go inside.  You don’t take three carts full of food through the 10 items or less lane, why do you think it’s appropriate to order food for your whole cubicle farm from the drive thru?

C)   Special Orders – The point of the drive thru is that it is supposed to be quicker than going in.  Having to stop the assembly line because you don’t like pickles just ruins everyone’s day.  Some places do an abbreviated partial menu for the drive thru.  I would be fully in favor of more places doing this.