Consumer alert! Consumer alert!
Dear friends and readers, let this be a warning: do not stop at the A&W/KFC restaurant in Atoka, Oklahoma. If you do, you will regret it.

Allow me to paint the scene: I was driving home from Arkansas yesterday. My trusty dog Murphy was in the front seat, sacked out in his doggie bed. I am tooling through Atoka, a small town of about 3,000 kinda famous (to those of us who have to drive through this part of Oklahoma on a regular basis) for its speed traps. I'd been in the car for four or five hours and had recently finished a 20 oz. Diet Dr Pepper.

Now, when I was on my way home last Friday, I had spotted the A&W/KFC restaurant and had wanted to stop. But it was on the left side of the road, so I gave it a miss. On the way back, however, it was on the right side. I needed to pee, I figured Murphy needed to pee, and I wanted a root beer float. So I pulled in. I let Murphy pee in a grassy area and put him back in the car (windows cracked, of course). I took out some of the trash from my previous stop (Diet Dr Pepper bottle, beef jerky wrapper) and walked toward the restaurant.

I should have known something was wrong when both of the trash cans flanking the doors were full... overflowing. I chose the one on the left. On top of all the trash was... a poopy diaper. I mean, this diaper was wide open and you could see all of the little poops inside of it. GROSS. I deposited my trash on top and went inside.

The ladies room had two stalls. The handicapped stall had a toilet that had recently seen a large explosion of some kind. The toilet had been pretty hosed down by someone who had eaten food that didn't agree with their tummy. I went into the second stall to see that the toilet hadn't been flushed after someone had peed. I decided to take my chances with the pee toilet. I flushed - it went down. Hooray.

Women's bathroom stalls usually have two extra features: a metal trash can where you can put your used feminine hygiene products and a metal toilet seat cover dispenser. This stall had both. Unfortunately, someone got confused, and they had put a used maxi pad in the toilet seat cover dispenser. Just wedged it right up in there. As I pondered why someone would do this, my eyes traveled to the toilet paper dispenser. Oh yes, no paper. I hobbled to the poopy stall, grabbed some, and hobbled back. Anyway, I figured it couldn't get worse than this.

I was wrong.

After I finished in the bathroom, I walked into the main room. There was a haze in the air, and I could tell someone had burned something in the kitchen. Oh well, that shouldn't affect my root beer float. I stood at the counter a couple of minutes, as people going through the drive-thru were helped and employees bantered to each other. Finally, some young kid (I will call him Bob) came up and asked if I had been helped.

Me: No.
Bob: How are you today?
Me: Um, I'd like a small root beer float.

Bob starts putting my order in the computer. Then he takes out two sizes of cups - I'm thinking they were the small and medium size.

Bob: (holding up the cups) What size do you want?
Me: Small.

So Bob goes to make the float. He is having some trouble. He calls back to another employee (I'll call him Joe). "Hey Joe?" He starts fiddling with the root beer tap again. "Uh, never mind."

So he puts in the root beer and ice cream, grabs a spoon and straw, and hands me the float. I go out to the car. It's hard to get situated, since I've got a dog who is very interested in the float, I've got to get buckled in, and I've got to open the straw. I finally try the float... YUCK! No root beer, just carbonation.

I extract myself from the car, tell Murph to stay, and go back inside. There's a woman waiting at the counter. A couple minutes go by. Finally Joe comes up to help us.

Joe: Have you been helped?
Lady: No.
Joe: What can I get you?
Lady: An Oreo fudge blast. (or whatever they call their version of the Blizzard)
Joe: (to me) Have you been helped?
Me: Yes, but there's something wrong with this. (holding up the float)
Joe: OK.

After a little while, my old buddy Bob shows back up. He takes my cup from me and tells me there's something wrong with the syrup, so they'll have to make me a new one. I say that this is okay. He then proceeds to dump out my old float and rinse out the cup. You know, to reuse it. He then tries the pump again... yep, only carbonation. Joe tries jiggling the syrup line or something. It doesn't work. "Try the one in the lobby," Joe says to Bob.

Bob goes out to the root beer pump in the lobby (where you and I would normally get refills). Same thing - just carbonation. He tries the diet root beer - that's working fine. I tell him diet would be just fine. Bob goes back behind the counter.

Bob: Do you want diet or regular?
Me: Diet, regular, I don't care! I just need to get back on the road!
Bob: I can make you one with regular!
Me: Fine, whatever!

So, Bob gets two cups. One, I think, is for syrup. The other is for carbonation. He's trying to hand-mix the root beer! It somehow doesn't work, and I can tell he's getting frustrated. He throws both cups in the trash, sighs, and gets another cup (remember, this is the guy who was recycling my original cup... he's now used four or five other cups). He finally goes to the side of the kitchen, where I can't see him, comes back up front and adds in some ice cream, and then goes back into the kitchen. Then he gives me the completed ice cream float, and says "Sorry about that."

I open the straw and plunge it in. Warm, sticky sweetness. YUCK! Apparently, this is the new way to make an A&W root beer float:

1. Add in a bunch of warm syrup.
2. Add ice cream.
3. Put some more warm syrup on top to make sure the ice cream is melting from all sides.

It was so disgusting. But I had already wasted about twenty minutes of my time (or more), so I just left. I ate what ice cream I could and tossed the rest. Funnily enough, A&W's website doesn't have a "Contact Us" section for complaints. Maybe this is because their employees can't make a damn root beer float!