People Reveal Their Worst 'This Isn't What I Ordered' Dining Experiences

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You go to restaurants to be served, catered to, and taken care of. That's the main reason we all go out, right? Certainly not an inherent laziness or a non-desire to cook. No, that couldn't be it. Sometimes, since we're paying for our food, it creates a false sense of entitlement if everything isn't exactly perfect. As evidenced by the stories below, sometimes it's well-deserved.

Reddit user, u/intro_set3, wanted to hear the horrendous and the horrible when they asked:

What's your "I didn't know someone could mess up my order so bad." dining experience?

Grape Leaf Melt?

I can't think of a time that my order was screwed up but my mom's was.

She ordered grape leaves, and grilled cheese. Two separate things. Instead, they cooked the grape leaves (stuffed with rice and olive oil) inside of the grilled cheese sandwich... guess it became a melt.

She said it was horrible.

sweatycat

A Bad Day Made Even Worse With Missing Meat

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McDonalds by the C gates in O'Hare airport.

Just got off a long flight from Europe, had a short connection that was made even tighter by the fact that my bag took forever to arrive at customs, and the people mover was down so I had to wait in a mile long line to get a goddamn bus from T5 to T1. I had little time to spare and was starving, so I ordered a double quarter pounder meal, no mustard.

Somehow, someone heard this as double quarter pounder, no meat. So I was given a bread, ketchup, mustard, onion and cheese sandwich. If I wanted a quarter pounder without meat, WHY would I order a double quarter pounder and pay more for it?

I did not have time for them to correct it as my flight was about to start boarding and they were running slow, it took them 10 minutes to make this fancy grilled cheese sandwich so I got a refund instead.

t-poke

A 3-Step Delivery

This was via Uber and honestly I don't blame the poor girl who had to drive it out, three times.

First time she just brought rice, forgot the curry.

Second time she brought it, it was perfect - I think. She dropped it and splashed it across my driveway.

Third time was a charm and came with a free drink 👍

overcloseness

A Joke We Weren't In On

Buffet in Vegas. Waiter takes our drink order, milk for me, oj for the gf and water for the both of us. We get a plate of food and come back to a coke and Sprite. Not really concerned we ask for water and carry on. He brings two grapefruit juices. At this point I am thinking we are on camera and my girlfriend is just trying not to laugh. I asked he waiter if I could have a Milk again, and an oj for my girlfriend.

He smiles, says no problem, milk and oj. He comes back with two chocolate milks and winks at me. I am full out laughing with my girlfriend at this point and we have completely given up on getting what we asked for. I am not sure if he didn't speak English in the slightest, if he was on drugs or if he was just playing a joke on us but he got a decent tip for getting everything wrong. Quite possibly the best meal of the trip

Turtle_Universe

Water =/= Popcorn

Not sure if it qualifies as "dining" but at a movie theater I ordered "two bottles of water"

The person working the concession stand nods and then proceeds to make me a giant bucket of popcorn. At first I thought maybe you just had to move the popcorn around so it didn't burn or something because heat lamps idk I thought maybe he did it because my order was so simple and it would take very little time just to give it a quick toss.

But no, he fills up a giant bucket of popcorn and sets it on the counter and tells me how much it is. Anyway I'm grateful that it isn't too difficult to empty an untouched bucket of popcorn back into the popper

I don't even remember how the movie was, I was so focused on trying to decide if "bottle" rhymes with "popcorn"

AdmiralKomodo

How Can You Even Call Yourself That?

McDonalds. Got an Egg McMuffin with... get this... no f-ing egg on it.

A Neg McMuffin.

TheDevilIsBlue

Doesn't Matter How Bad It Is, You Still Gotta Pay

Place called Eddie Rockets. Myself and my grandmother had just come out of the cinema and went to get some food. We waited 2 hours until we realised that our food wasn't coming, when I told the waitress that the food arrived about two minutes later, literally raw to the point that neither of us ate it for fear of getting sick.

Then they made us pay for it. I was young at the time and my nan is too nice to contest things like that, but lemme tell you, I'd be tempted to call Bord Bia, that place makes people sick like every time they eat there, something's gotta be up

AlertedCoyote

That's...Huh?

I ordered a double cheeseburger at a roadside diner and the woman gave me a cheeseburger with one piece of meat. I told her the order was wrong and she pointed at the menu on the wall.

"It's not a double cheeseburger. It's a double CHEESE burger."

"Huh?"

"One piece of meat and two pieces of cheese."

sigh

Really?

Winstonian24

You're Missing A KEY Ingredient

Ordered a mayo chicken and they forgot the chicken.

Was just a mayo lettuce bun

Basketguard

Who Hasn't Cried Over Food, Right?

My boyfriend lives about an hour away from me, so I'll drive to his place and visit on the weekends. He and I discovered a pizza-gyro place that closes at 3 am.

I'd gotten to his house at about 9 one night, and we hung out with his roommates for about an hour. We decided to order some food (because who DOESN'T love gyros???) I forget what he ordered but I ordered a normal gyro - lamb, onion, lettuce, tomato, and tzatziki sauce. After an hour and a half of waiting, I thought it was odd (estimated time WASN'T an hour) but no biggie, it is delivery after all.

After three hours, I was unhappy to say the least. SO, boyfriend calls and they hem and haw and they said the delivery guy was new to the area. OK, I can be patient (even though the restaurant isn't even too far from the house). We wait another hour.

At this point, I'm getting pretty hangry. All I wanted after a long day of school & work was my late night dinner!!!! We call again & they say the guy will be there soon.

Finally the guy shows up. We thank him, he apologizes, hey it happens...

We open his food. It's cold but ok we can microwave it I guess. I open mine.

Lamb, onions, tomatoes, lettuce (okay, all right so far...), black olives, feta cheese, banana peppers & tzatziki. Any other time I honestly would have just scraped off the stuff I don't like.

HOWEVER.

  1. I was just so hungry
  2. I HATE olives so much (and banana peppers to a lesser extent)
  3. IT'S NOW THREE IN THE MORNING

so I just start bawling.

My sweet, sweet boyfriend scrapes off the unwanted toppings from my sick, sick gyro as I quietly sob about my 'ruined' dinner. (I realize it wasn't ruined but you know)

Honestly it's still kind of embarrassing because I'm the kind of person who would rather eat the wrong order than say anything to the waiter but I think waiting for several hours for my dinner, just for it to include one of my least favorite food items made me lose it.

I tried calling just to let them know that the order was messed up (not that they would be able to fix it) but they were now closed... as we had to wait, like, a total of 5 hours for our food... Never called them again to complain OR order food. However they closed less than a month later so

lasyers

A Boba Place Minus The Boba

Yesterday i ordered boba. Lady messed up on my first order, tried to blame me. Then when they made my order again they messed up and i had to point out it was missing the tapioca pearls.

She then replied that they ran out and just stared at me. Mind you, i paid extra for the pearls.. after the long pause i asked for a refund for the pearls at least.. something so simple didn't have to be that difficult

skinandearth

Happy, But For A Different Reason

My dad once got a piece of broken glass in his food at a Ruby Tuesday's.

I remember actually being happy about this as a kid because it meant we wouldn't be coming back, and the crayons at Ruby Tuesday's are TERRIBLE.

lizardho

This Seems Like They Purposefully Made It Wrong

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Domino's. I was drunk and hungry so I ordered a large Margherita. It arrived, I opened the box and what I saw did not remotely resemble a pizza.

It was a burnt round of bread with a thin layer of cheese and no sauce. I tried some to see if it tasted better than it looked, but no... not only had they forgotten the sauce, they had also put chopped up anchovies UNDERNEATH THE CHEESE!!!

allthewayup7

Does Seem Like More Effort Than What Was Needed

Girlfriend and I ordered a burger and told the server we would split it.

What arrived was two plates, each with half a bun and a small patty, as if they had taken the meat of one patty, divided it and cooked two small burgers instead. So we each had an open face slider on a full size bun half.

Definitely a unique interpretation of splitting a burger. To this day the amount of effort they put in astounds me.

curiousGambler

Just A Bro Getting It All Wrong

It was finals week. I rounded up several of my friends for a late-night study break at Denny's.

We get seated pretty quickly, but it was a good 20 minutes before we saw our waiter. No biggie, we all had study materials with us and weren't in a rush.

When our waiter finally showed, he flipped a chair around to our table and sat with us. He didn't say anything, so we asked if he was going to take our orders. His response: "Naw. I'm just chillin."

We smirked at one another and went back to our studies. After a few minutes our waiter got up and said, "I'm gonna go out and smoke this joint and then I'll take your order, alright?"

Who are we to say no to that?

He eventually took our orders. When the food came out the orders were a bit botched, but we figured trying to get them corrected might take a while, and we were entertained enough that we didn't really care...until the bill came. The total for seven meals at Denny's? $350.

We called over our waiter, pointed out the error and waited for him to fix it. After a few minutes of messing with the register he looked at us and said, "sorry guys, I don't know how to fix it."

One of my friends asked to look at it. The waiter obliged. My friend took a few minutes to learn the register, and a few minutes later we were on our way, having paid the correct totals.

lotsalotsacoffee

People Break Down The Biggest Changes You'd See In 'Harry Potter' If It Were Set In The U.S.

Image by tookapic from Pixabay

Can you see Harry Potter at a football game in the Midwest? Chowing on a corn dog, throwing back some good ole Pepsi-Cola? Or can you picture the Harry universe living and loving in the great U. S of A? What would casting look like against the backdrop of the great harvest plains? I have so many thoughts and ideas. The first thought, the change would never work. Keep the story alive on British soil.

But, for fun, let's chat about the idea.

Redditor u/Cuish wanted all the Potter heads out there to share what American tweeks would occur in the Potterverse within America, by asking:

If Harry Potter was set in the United States, how would the story change?
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harry potter

People Break Down Which Tasks Are Not As Simple As People Think They Are

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Life isn't as simple as one may think. It's not always easy to take a step back and look at the big picture, but when there's over seven billion people on the planet, there's no way things are as cut and dry as they seem.

Everyone's experiences are different going through life. We may not be able to see the complexities it if we haven't lived it ourselves.

So we went to Reddit because we wanted to see what's not as simple as people think it is.

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challenges

People Explain Which Double Standards Need To End Immediately

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Double standards are something we all live with and, quite likely, find extremely annoying. Things like men being expected to hide their emotions—or not have them at all—or women being expected to stay home and support a couple's children, everyone is generally harmed by double standards.

This is especially true when the double standard isn't clear until someone violates it and then has to deal with anger, ridicule, or sometimes even violence as a result.

Content Note: this article mentions suicide and sexual assault, reader discretion advised.

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double standards

People Describe The Most Valuable Item They've Ever Found In The Garbage

Image by jacqueline macou from Pixabay

They say one man's trash is another man's treasure - and sometimes that saying is pretty literal.

Lots of people build entire businesses picking up cool stuff on bulk-pickup trash day, and upcycling it into something even better that people are willing to pay for.

Sometimes, you might even end up with something pristine and usable right away.

Reddit user JampackedAlborn1976 asked:

What is the most valuable item that you have seen somebody throw away or have found in the garbage?

And for real ... some of these people scored BIG TIME. Like big time. Like really big.

Like Refrigerator Big

just ask leslie jones GIF by Saturday Night Live Giphy

"Our current refrigerator is a double-door one with exterior ice and water dispensers. We got it for free, with absolutely no problems whatsoever. It's just a few years old."

"How we got it? My dad (civil engineer) was doing some work on someone's apartment when they said they had bought a new modern French door refrigerator and that they were just going to discard their current refrigerator."

"My dad simply asked if he could have it.. and they said yes." - SauloJr

Immigrants In Action

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"I immigrated to the US from Brazil when I was 12. And every Saturday, my mom, stepdad, sister and I would go out at night to upper middle class neighborhoods the day before trash pickup to rummage through the garbage they were putting out."

"We found perfectly good TVs, VCRs, microwaves, couches, lazy boys, tables, books and comics, etc."

"I couldn't believe these Americans were throwing out like that. We furnished our entire house with that stuff. The entire Brazilian immigrant community in my town did it. We were flabbergasted." - PhillipLlerenas

With A Note

Television Bunny GIF Giphy

"My wife yelled at me that someone put a big TV outside with a note on it. Walked across the street and it was a brand new Samsung 37 inch HDTV."

"They were actually renovating the apartment building and got an upgraded TV. Even had the remote taped to it with batteries, I guess I have really nice neighbors here in NYC." - MadLintElf

Life Hack!

studying busy philipps GIF by Drunk History Giphy

"If you want high end stuff out of the garbage for free, follow these steps:"

"Pick a city with a large university in it. If it's a school well known for its law programs, or medical, or engineering, all the better."

"Search for luxury apartment complexes that market themselves towards students. Look for things like included shuttle service, pools, fitness centers, etc. The more expensive and swanky the better."

"Figure out when finals week is at the end of Spring semester."

"Dumpster dive at those luxury apartment complexes during that week and the following weekend."

"Very wealthy international students will arrive in the US, fully outfit an apartment with nice furniture, big TVs, audio systems, gaming consoles, you name it, and when the semester ends they just junk it all because they aren't going to fly it back to wherever, and it's too much effort to spend the time selling when they do not care about the money."

"It's a smaller scale phenomenon a little like all the luxury cars abandoned at the airport in Dubai." - whattothewhonow

Literal Gold Treasure

valley of the boom david kim stanley GIF by National Geographic Channel Giphy

"I found a gold coin at goodwill for 5 bucks. It was in a case with someone's name and company name."

"It was their gift from the company for retiring. I assume the family threw it out when he died not knowing it was solid gold. It was in a in a thick solid plastic case that had to be cracked opened."

"It literally said 1 oz fine gold on it. I figured 5 bucks was worth the risk it not being real."

"It was a South African KRUGERRAND 1 oz coin. Everyone was just too busy to read it lol."

"Bought it and took it too a pawn shop and sold it for a couple grand." - streetmitch

The Best Day Of My Life

Will Smith Wow GIF by 1LIVE Giphy

"When I was a kid, I grew up right outside the Los Angeles area in the suburbs. My stepdad was a garbage truck driver for the city of Beverly Hills."

"I swear in the late 80s and early 90s we'd have so much basically brand new stuff (still in boxes) brought home on a regular basis."

"I'll never forget one day in particular. My stepdad came home and was like 'get ready, come to the car, I'll need your help.' So I go down there and in back seat of his car he had a few large black garbage bags."

"We haul them up to our apartment and he's like 'go ahead, open them.' Inside was what I could only describe as an 80s kids trove of treasures."

"One bag contained just about every Ghostbusters and GI joe toy you can imagine, they were played with but had every little accessory, there was a bunch the playsets and everything."

"In the other bag was pretty much every LEGO of the early 80s sets, still in their original boxes. I was a big LEGO nerd but was totally thrown off by the old school space ones because they looked nothing like the 90s space sets. I think they even said "NASA" the minifig's chests."

"That was like a random day in July, it felt like Christmas. I was 9 years old and it was basically like the best day of my life up to that point." - Zombgief

Who Throws Away Money?

spongebob squarepants money GIF Giphy

"A jar full of quarters."

"Annual spring cleaning projects happen in a lot of towns where anyone can put almost anything on the curb and it's taken away for free. It's to stop open dumping or stuff being dumped in ditches."

"Sometimes people deal with estates from winter by just dumping all their grandfather's stuff on the curb for the cleanup to get the house empty immediately. Most often they don't even bother to look at what they are throwing away."

"In 2012 on north road in Akwesasne I found an estate pile that I shuttled back and forth with my bike trailer getting lots of older tools like a scythe, hammers, saws, screwdrivers and wrenches, a 22 rifle with 100 round of ammo, a bunch of ar15 magazines, cast iron cookware, oil lamps, a hand crank food mill with all kinds of accessories, a black raven axe head (worth $100 easily since they are a collectable), and a quart size mason jar full of change mostly quarters."

"That was spring and the sheriffs office did a gun buyback in the fall where I took the mags and got $20 each for them (30 round mags suddenly illegal under the safe act of fall 2012. The buyback was a local political move). I still got the 22 and picked off a lot of woodchuck with it in my gardens." - Bogtrotterso1980

Filing Fever

Files Workload GIF Giphy

"I own a small company which is located directly in front of a state funded program facility. The state decided to have this office shred all of their files as they were going to switch to electronic data (exclusively)."

"We found two of these old rotary filing cabinets outside of their office. They're worth almost $3k each!"

"They just placed them there and we saw them and asked what they planned on doing with them. They said, 'Hmmm.....either donate them or trash them.' The state told them simply to get rid of them."

"We jumped at this and took the two into our already tiny office because there was no way in hell that we were going to let these gems go. (We do use paper files, unfortunately)."

"They wanted to give us two smaller ones but seriously, our office is very small. I made some phone calls and they were picked up immediately by other office workers/friends." - GlitzBlitz

This Sucks - In A Good Way!

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"In the 1990s my moms work had a really nice high end Hoover that stopped working. They threw it out."

"My mom took it home because my dad tinkers and repairs things easily. Turns out since it was a bagged vacuum all the dummies had to do is REPLACE THE BAG."

"Like it never occurred to them to do the most easy and basic step. My parents were excited to have a really upgraded vacuum. Maybe like $500ish." - schweddyboobs

Tiffany's Trash

Audrey Hepburn Movie GIF by The Good Films Giphy

"My dad found an old stained glass window laying out by someone's trash. He thought it would look cool hanging in our cabin, so he stopped and grabbed it."

"It sat in our garage for a few years before he looked at it more closely and found "Tiffany and Co." branding on it. He got in touch with some stained glass window dude who figured it was worth about $40k fully restored, so my dad sold it to him for somewhere around $30k." - throwaway_stopdrink

Have you had any awesomely trashtastic treasures? Let us know!

garbage