Even more Florida efficiency

When driving home from the big dog park Sunday evening, my wife said, “I don’t want to cook tonight. How about KFC?” That sounded good to me. At the drive-through window, my wife gave my order. The order-taking person did not get it right. My wife tried again. Nope on the correct order. She said, “I’ll just come in and give the order.” She did and returned with a bag of KFC things.

On the way home, she said, “When I gave my order, the woman taking the order said they were out of chicken and I would have to wait 20 minutes.”

I said, “What? It’s a fried chicken place. How can they be out of chicken?

She shrugged and said, “That’s what she said. They were out of chicken.”

What the place was out of was normal pieces of chicken – legs, wings, thighs, etc. There was a sufficiency of tenders and popcorn chicken. But a two-piece meal? Didn’t have any. So, my wife got two small chicken sandwiches.

The next night, after our three-hour class at citizens police academy, we stopped at I Hop for 9 p.m. supper. I ordered classic breakfast crepes. The waiter left to turn in our order, but returned five minutes later and said, “We are out of crepes.” I thought: You’ve got milk and you have eggs. Make some crepes. I’ve made them at home; it’s not that difficult. I also thought: Your cook doesn’t know how to make crepes, or he/she is not allowed to. The things come in frozen, and somebody decides how many to thaw out. So, when that number is met, there are no more crepes available for serving.

I thought all that, but I did not say any of it, because I might embarrass or offend or piss off the cook, and that violates a rule of life – Don’t piss off the person cooking your food. So I changed my order.

Really, though. International House of Pancakes franchises do not make their own crepes? Do they make French toast or waffles or even pancakes, or do those arrive frozen?

How can a fried chicken franchise not have fried chicken? KFC. Kentucky Fried Chicken. Not Kentucky Maybe We Got Some Maybe We Don’t Fried Chicken.

And how is it an I Hop franchise cook is not allowed to make crepes?

This is America, by golly. We’re supposed to make stuff.

Update, more Florida efficiency

My wife got an appointment with a different Medicaid office. The people there saw John and agreed he qualifies for state benefits. My wife told the people of her previous appointment at an office that no longer exists. One woman said, "That office has been closed for a year."

Florida efficiency update

Still the same. My wife called the Medicaid office yesterday and was told someone would return her call within 24 hours. The call came in at ------- Yep. So Priscilla called back this afternoon, left a voice mail again recounting: appointment day and time; empty office; no note, no new address. And she got: Someone will return her call within 24 hours.

More Florida efficiency

My wife has been setting up appointments and filling out forms to get John transferred from Texas Medicaid to the Florida version. At times, the process seemed easy, and bureaucrats received Priscilla’s heartfelt thanks for information and patience.

Three weeks ago, she got notice that a Medicaid representative would need a face-to-face with John, to ask questions and determine if John qualifies for assistance. John is almost 60 physical years old, but his emotional and functional age is around 5 or 6. An interview would establish, without a doubt, of John meeting Medicaid requirements.

The notice was a letter, complete with address and phone number. Priscilla called the office after receiving the letter. She set an appointment date for today, early afternoon.

Today she got John from his group home and drove to the address.

“The place was empty,” she said about 15 minutes ago, after returning home. “I got there, but there was no office furniture, and no people.”

She called the number from three weeks ago. A recorded voice said someone would return her call within 24 hours. That’s all that was said. No “We moved.” No “Our new address is …” Nope.

If you are like Priscilla and me, you wonder why a statewide agency would make appointments at a specific address, then empty the office and leave no new address.

I chalk it up to Florida Efficiency. We have lived here for almost 22 months and have had several meetings with Florida’s way of doing business, which is Not At All.

So, Priscilla took John back to his group home. Perhaps she will get the return call sometime tomorrow.