Today I finally implemented a plan I've had for nearly two years, to visit random nearby towns, and that's not important right now but I had lunch in Nando's when I got there because that's another incredibly basic thing that everyone has done except me.
Man, fuck Nando's, as it turns out.
I went in and asked for food from the waitress who stands by the door and shows you to your table. All fine so far. "Have you come here since we reopened?" I've never been to a Nando's in my life, and coronavirus lockdowns did not influence this decision, but I have heard various UK-based humour outlets rage against any restaurant that asks if you've been before, because it implies they will have a "philosophy" or a "mission statement" and will go out of their way to needlessly complicate the dining experience for brand purposes. There was still time to listen, but there are none so deaf as those who will not hear, so I just said "No" like a normal person, and sat down.
Like a normal person, I listened to the explanation: rather than the waitress who was speaking to me at the time taking my order, I would need to scan the QR code on the table with my phone and order the food online. Like a normal person.
But I'm not a normal person. Some say this disparagingly, but I'm not normal because I am much more intelligent and correct than anyone who doesn't go into a raging fury when a faceless corporation insists on needlessly harvesting all my personal data. Normal people should do this, and it's not my fault they don't.
So I scan the QR code. And it takes me to the website. I go all through the website, and select the food I had already read off the menu in the window. No extended choosing here; I knew what I wanted. "Click here to pay for your order." Okay.
Error! You must log in! Log in with your user account!
No, you can't continue as guest like every website should let you do, since you're giving them money anyway. You must create an account.
But I've done this before, and I know all the tricks. Time for no@no.com to create an account once again.
Error! That's not a real email address!
noseriouslyfuckoff@gmail.net
Thank you for creating an account! Now type in the access code we have emailed to your email address.
Damn it! I've been outsmarted! But why do they need a code to verify my email address? I'm not using the email address to pay. If I put Boris Johnson's email address, what do they care? They'll still get the money. It'll still be me who's paying. Unless, of course, this is all a scam to harvest my email address. Which it obviously is. The bastards.
And then everything was fine. Just kidding! We're only just getting started! I, like all security-conscious intellectuals, have gone through my phone's permissions and blocked access that apps don't need. Did you know, for example, that Google counts all its apps as just one app on Android, and complains if an app doesn't have a permission that a totally separate Google app would need if I used it? My personal favourite is the warning (=veiled threat) that I "might experience issues" if I don't allow text messages to use my phone's heart monitor. Shock, horror: I don't experience any issues at all, same as I don't experience any issues when I won't let Google Sheets use my phone's microphone.
But none of this would apply for payment via a website, right? But it did. Apparently, you cannot pay, using a debit card that's unrelated to Google, on a website that's unrelated to Google, to buy motherfucking grilled chicken, unless you inexplicably allow Google Play access to your phone's storage. I don't see why, but I can allow it, I guess. I've been here for about ten minutes by now. I'll just disable it later.
Haha! Eat a dick, fool! You certainly aren't getting any chicken. Google Play already had access to my phone's storage; I'd never disabled that one. So at this point I had to try and troubleshoot some weird programming error in Android. But my job is similar to this; try allowing permission for absolutely everything. No; that didn't work. Not even when I gave my clock access to my camera, and all the other lunacy Google insists on. Switch the phone off and on again. Nope, nothing. To be fair, those are the only things I actually tried.
It should be noted that for all of this, everyone around me was, like in all restaurants, eating delicious, succulent chicken. The chicken I was going to eat. My chicken. The chicken I'd be halfway through eating, if an online search engine based roughly 7,000 miles away would permit such a thing. And there were plenty of Nando's employees around. There was even a waitress doing absolutely nothing, standing right in front of me. And on the table next to mine, a waiter knew the guy there, and came over to talk to him and to offer him some sneaky freebies, because you know, waiters are meant to ask you what food you want and bring it to you, right? An Internet connection should not be required for such a transaction. It is extraneous.
It never worked. I gave up. Dejected, I got up and walked to the exit, to leave with nothing. As I passed the waitress who had been standing there the whole time, I choked back the tears and pleaded with her: "Do I really, seriously, definitely need to order online? Isn't there anything else I can do?"
She thought for a moment. "If you know what you want, you can just tell me and I'll order it at the till."
So that's what I did. Honestly, their customer service was great. The chicken was a lot smaller than the picture in the window, though. Or perhaps I was at a level of hunger by that point that I could have eaten an entire live ostrich and more than the two side dishes they offer, so it just felt small.
But yeah. Fuck Nando's. It's like some Sisyphean Greek myth come to life. And if you've forgotten which one Sisyphus was, I suggest you look online, using Bing or DuckDuckGo.