An AI Took My Wendy's Order

The value of human thought, experience, connection, and communication

Oct 31, 2025

I never really go to Wendy’s. And I know I’m not the first to ever experience this. In fact, in the near future, the title of this post is going to seem so abnormal, simply because it’s posed like it’s not. Maybe by 2027, everyone will have their orders taken by disembodied robots, and I might as well have titled this “I got some dinner.”

But I hope not.

Wendy's employee handing an order to a drive through customer

The Incident

See, I typically hit the same places, with a few swap-out options, and Wendy’s is pretty much not on that list. There are plenty of fast food places near me to the point where I have multiple options per chain, and this definitely comes in handy so that the very real non-AI human beings at any one location don’t think I’m there every single day (more on that later).

But all my typical haunts and backups were not on the table that day because of a very human problem called Feeling Sick.

I’d spent the whole day trying to figure out this blogging thing and what I might write about on top of doing some work, and I’d barely eaten so my stomach didn’t feel great. I was also coming off of days of burritos and fried chicken so I needed a place that would feel completely different. Not greasy, not too seasoned, but still filling.

So I head out to Wendy’s — not just any Wendy’s, but one we never go to even though it is technically the closest. It’s just out of the way of anywhere else we would go, and there’s never any reason to go to Wendy’s at all if not coming back from some store where a Wendy’s happens to be the only viable nearby place.

(Don’t worry, there’s a reason for all this extraneous detail.)

I head to the drive through, and there’s a car in front of me so I take this time to figure out my order. On my mind is a baked potato with cheese, but if the person at the drive through tells me it’ll be a while, then I’ll instead get the 10-piece spicy chicken nuggets. If it’s a yes on the baked potato, then we’ll go back down to a 6-piece. And fries maybe, if it’s the 10-piece.

I’m thinking of all this, trying to get my options straightened out as I pull up to the window, and I hear this AI voice asking me about whether I’m using the app or something. Believe it or not, this isn’t the weird part.

I wasn’t really paying attention because there have been several drive throughs that usually have some auto-voice (AI, recorded real person, Siri’s twin) ask about the app or some other promotional thing before the actual person shows up to take the order.

So I’m waiting for the actual person to show up, but instead, this same robot voice tells me to order whenever I’m ready.

And I wish I could convey to you just how caught off guard I was in this moment.

Truly baffled — like imagine a Modern Family style sitcom scene with a camera zoom in. Every coherent thought escaped me. I almost pulled out ChatGPT to help me respond (just kidding, don’t text and drive).

I managed to mention the baked potato first. I wasn’t sure if the AI was getting this because there was no display showing me my order and no human reading it back to me. No response or acknowledgement at all, in fact, so I just kept going.

I said the chicken nuggets, and I added on the fries, even though I wasn’t gonna get both fries AND the baked potato because that’s just too much potato for one meal. I also mentioned honey mustard once after the nuggets and then again after the fries.

At this point I was just so confused what was going on that my brain sort of just tried to move forward even though it was still stuck. Did the AI ask me what else I wanted before I said the fries? Or did I say the fries anyway? I have no idea.

I wish I could remember if the AI asked me if I was done. I feel like it didn’t, but I don’t want to misrepresent anyone — sorry, anything. Regardless, it did tell me something about how my order would be ready at the window and so with complete befuddlement, I just pulled ahead.

And as I’m sitting there, trying to figure out what just happened, this actual person comes out, takes my money, then tells me AFTER the payment has gone through that I’ll need to pull up to the door to wait for the baked potato.

Hello????

This is exactly what I wanted to avoid in the first place. I just wanted to be in and out, then back home. I didn’t sign up for this! If a real person had been taking my order, then they could’ve told me I’d have to wait on the potato and I would’ve said no.

That’s not to say I’ve never been in a drive through where I had to wait longer because they needed more time to make something, sometimes with my telling them that I’ll wait and other times with no choice because things are taking much longer than they anticipated. Human beings aren’t perfect, after all, and who am I to complain as long as I get my food? These are busy people.

But this was such a strangely concocted set of events. I was specifically thinking about how I’d leave something out of an order since I knew Wendy’s didn’t always have a cooked baked potato on hand just ready to go. I’ve had experiences where I’m told, by the way, it would be 45 minutes on that, after which I’d say never mind.

Yet I have to end up waiting like twenty minutes because an AI wouldn’t have the ability to account for what’s actually going on in the store. Because it’s not a real person experiencing a rush or checking on food availability. It’s an automation.

The Chaos of Being Human

The crazy part is if I just had an AI take my order and it didn’t have a consequence like that, I would probably not be so weirded out. Don’t get me wrong, it would still be ridiculous, but maybe it would just make me more appreciative of the humans I interact with and no more.

But the irony of me literally hoping to avoid a problem and then having to face it anyway…no wonder I sat in the car too baffled to even turn the music back on. On the upside, I took those twenty minutes to vent into my notes app to turn this experience into this first post.

Plus, I got a free frosty. It was vanilla, which I hate, so I had to give it to my mom who’s trying to cut down on sugar, but I’m not gonna make the Wendy’s lady go back inside and swap it out for just trying to be nice.

Admittedly, the complimentary desert also being wrong kinda killed me but it’s not like she could’ve asked me before coming outside. It’s just the cherry on top of an already awkward situation (I hate cherries, too).

In fact, it’s the cherry on top of an insanely specific chain of events no AI could ever come up with — feeling sick on the very day I needed an idea, going to a Wendy’s I never go to, the AI, the baked potato, even the tiny little frosty.

This, my friends, is the chaos of the human experience.

The unpredictability of life, the intensity of our reactions, and how that leads to new thoughts, ideas, and experiences to then share.

The very nature of the human experience seems to be underestimated by all these tech bros who insist AI needs to be in every corner of our lives and pretty much everyone else, especially in today’s fast-paced world. Not only is the human experience misunderstood, but it’s completely undervalued.

And why is that? Because it’s impossible to really explain.

The human experience is something that happens in real time. It can’t really be captured by AI because an AI can never go through the minute day-to-day motions that we go through. Any little thing can trigger any other thing. Any experience or thought can lead to another. This is chaos theory in practice.1

What exactly humanity is, that’s something that can’t be explained, it can’t be replicated, and it sure can’t be imitated.

It can only be experienced.

Surprise! It Happened Again

Either the universe wanted me to drive home this point, or this world is truly ridiculous and loves to move fast on trends because days later, it happened again.

We usually never go to Donato’s, but to make a long story short, one day my brother wanted some and I was in the car so we got some. The location itself wasn’t unfamiliar either as there’s a fast food place across the street I would go to occasionally (this becomes relevant later).

That first time we ordered in person, but a couple days later, I figure I can pick up some pizza on the way back from dropping my brother off ‘cause it was pretty tasty last time and I was annoyed my brother ate most of it before I could even breathe. Of course, given the distance, I want to call ahead so it’ll be ready by the time I get there.

So here I am, calling Donato’s. Once again I literally knew exactly word for word what I was going to say — large thin crust pepperoni pizza because that’s what we got last time, and I’ll pick it up in 15 minutes because I knew that I was 15 minutes from the location. But what could have taken two seconds if an actual person answered the phone, instead led to a five minute back and forth with a robot.

This AI kept asking me my order, and I would repeat it, then asked to confirm by repeating my order, and I would confirm, then ask me to wait a minute, then confirm it again — and this went on for like five minutes. If I had known that it would take that long, I wouldn’t have pulled over and parked the car. I would have just made the order in the car via Bluetooth while stuck in the traffic I knew I’d have to sit through anyway and even accounted for in my 15 minute countdown.

And while the Wendy’s thing was weird, the Donato’s thing actually pissed me off, ‘cause why are you making things harder for me? Who does this help? It certainly doesn’t help the workers, and plus it’s going to be done too early which is why I called instead of doing an online order because I figured I’ll just tell them when I’ll be there based on what the GPS says.

Also, I thought it would be faster than having to put all my info in the online order thing but because it’s an AI it’s just like “okay, your order is going to be ready at this time which happens to be 10 minutes from now and you literally can’t do anything to change it.” Even though you asked me a million times if my order was correct, you couldn’t let me tell you how long.

And when this was all finally over, I wasn’t even sure if my order actually went through because there’s no real person to say “we’ll see you here shortly” and hang up. I had to awkwardly hang up myself because the AI just stayed on the line after confirming my order yet again.

I then got to the store and of course, they didn’t have my order. I told the girl at the counter I had to talk to some weird AI thing so she just put in my order again, and as she did that, I realized the truth: I actually sent my order to the wrong location.

But look, I was already confused since I know the location in my head and I know what big street it’s off of but I didn’t know what the actual address was. In fact I again had planned to ask during my order hey, is this the such-and-such location? But I got so caught off guard, and I couldn’t have asked the AI anyway.

This isn’t to excuse my own idiocy. I could’ve pulled up the map and figured out if it was the right place. However, just as AI makes mistakes, so do humans. Only our mistakes become a part of our experience and impact us in some way that we might even share with the world.

But the story doesn’t end here, because after that realization, I called the original location, sidestepped the AI to talk to a real employee, told them I made a mistake and needed to cancel my order, and done! Just like that!

(And if anyone cares, there was something off about the pizza so my brother got to eat the whole thing again anyway.)

The Value of Human Interaction

See, it’s not just about our own individual experiences — humanity is also about connecting with other humans.

Honestly, I’m the type of person who would rather schedule an appointment online than speak to an actual person. I prefer the self-checkout at the grocery store, I don’t mind in-store fast food kiosks with the whole menu accessible, and I would much rather work remotely.

But I love the part of my day when I go out driving and hit up my usual food spots rather than ordering online or getting delivery. Besides the benefit of not paying more when you can literally just drive there in 10 minutes, you also get to be more precise about exactly what you want.

In fact, I used to go to a few places enough that they recognized me. Sometimes I would even try to switch between different locations of the same franchise so they wouldn’t look at me like I was crazy, though that wasn’t always feasible based on cost or quality sometimes being vastly different across locations in the same region.

So I just had to accept that these people would remember that I showed up in the same jacket every day per season. But this leads to some really unforgettable moments.

One time, this new guy at one of these places was confused about something, and the lady who was processing my check out told him something like “Don’t worry about it; she’s a regular.”

Me? A regular? You know me?

Of course by then, a couple other employees had also referenced seeing me a lot because, to quote one of them, I was in there every day “tearin’ up that brisket.”

Good to know these random strangers whose names I’ll never know who also don’t know my name have such a strong impression of me. I don’t even go that much, to be honest, and if I ever build up my rewards, I’ll generally go to the other location because it’s closer and the price won’t matter since it’s free.

But even the fact that I’m out here playing a game of don’t-go-to-the-same-location-too-much is kind of a fun experience. There’s just something amusing about these private experiences, minor interactions, silly thoughts that contribute to your overall being in this overly chaotic world.

I mean, you wanna talk about getting caught off guard at the drive through, here’s an interaction that really got my goat.

There are two places near me that I switch between, but one day I was picking up my brother from practice so I went to this third one, near his school. I roll down my window, preparing for the person to ask me to order whenever I’m ready, and instead, I hear a voice telling me my order.

Hello????? Who’s there???

I did a double take and told them yes, then pulled ahead. And at the window was an employee from one of the other locations — an employee I only ever interacted with once, by the way.

That’s insane. Like you really remembered me!

She even commented on the fact that I was at a new location, which was amusing, but over time, the frequency with which I visited that location I originally saw her at led to many of them definitely recognizing me, with another person learning my order, too, and inputting it on the screen when as I drive up.

Though most people don’t say anything about “oh, it’s you again,” and that’s fine, because there’s definitely a level of awkwardness when people at the window feel like they have to converse with you, and you gotta start coming up with extremely profound comments like “It’s gloomy today, isn’t it?”

To which one person actually said, “Oh, I wouldn’t say gloomy.” Like I’m just trying to answer your question. But I don’t resent such interactions. They may be awkward, they may catch me off guard, but they’re ultimately amusing and short and they don’t actively ruin my day. It’s also awkward, of course, when they don’t close the window so now you can’t roll up your window and you have to just sit there and hope they don’t ask you anything, but it’s still weirdly amusing as it’s happening.

Eventually, I started favoring the other location of my original two, and guess what? They started recognizing me there, too!

And I got yet another casual acquaintance for a short while, and occasionally when I would pull up, she’d be like, “You want your usual?” and I immediately know who’s there.

We don’t know each other outside of seeing each other a couple random times per week. But that’s what makes it fun! The fact that there are other random people in the world living their own lives, and you cross paths from time to time, and it’s a pleasant experience, that can be pretty cool. I haven’t gone back there in a while anyway, so I probably won’t ever see these people again, but that’s okay.

It’s a reminder that even though we may live in a world that can seem kind of bleak sometimes — with a lot of uncontrollable chaos, horrible and unbelievably stupid people all over social media and in positions of power, and yes, some nasty in-person experiences as a result of all that hate — there are still so many real, living, breathing people out there in the world who are genuinely good, kind, friendly, and care about other human beings.

And that’s something AI can never truly grasp — connection.

Because AI doesn’t live in the real world, doesn’t have experience, doesn’t have actual thoughts. It can’t magically and singularly help us solve the problems of a world made up of humans, problems created by humans, problems that only exist because of a lack of real interpersonal connections.

It’s why I wanted to be in the business of storytelling, because the ability to reach people through stories is undeniably powerful. Humans connect with other humans. It is the ultimate way to bring about change.

I mean, why else would I give you so much irrelevant information about my fast food excursions? Who cares about the exact circumstances under which all this went down and the minute details? Why do I need you to know I’m a grown adult just in case you read this thinking I’m in high school because I mentioned living with my family?

But that’s the human experience.

I might be a little more fixated on that stuff than the average person, but maybe it’ll make you think about the weird or not so weird and seemingly small interactions you’ve had before.

Have you also been at a Chipotle where you asked for a little hot sauce and they threw in the entire ladle? Or you were too awkward to ask for more rice because you didn’t realize how little they gave you until it was already down the line?

We’ve all had uncomfortable or awkward or weird experiences and interactions with other people on the daily, even outside of lunchtime. But what are you gonna do? Complain? Let it ruin your day? Or just take from the experience something valuable and move on with your life? (Exceptions apply, like we’re not talking horrific experiences here — just awkward moments.)

So the idea that we’re being pushed to accept AI for the sake of maybe eliminating such interactions, it’s quite ridiculous, to say the least. As of writing this, I recently saw an Instagram reel that was surprisingly relevant (and made me question once again if Meta was spying on me). This girl got offered some Meta glasses, and in this video, she expresses her own experience with the loss of human connection.2

Imagine a world where we’re all secluded in these high tech rooms that are customized to give us every experience we could ever want while we’re optimally productive. We get our food delivered, strap on a VR headset to “walk outside” in some distant country, and chat online with strangers we’ve never met who are curated for minimal conflict. Who would ever need to leave?

But why wouldn’t we want to?

Why Human Thought Is Unique

I think there are two different aspects of the human experience — one that is the collective human experience that manifests in our legacy as a species, as a society, and one that is the day-to-day experience of being human.

Neither aspect should be taken for granted. It is a privilege to think and drive around and talk to others and create something out of nothing. It’s a wonder to look back through history and speculate on the future, and think not just about technology or geopolitical shifts, but specifically about how these affect human civilization. It’s crazy to think about what people in the future might think about us, and how different they might be, and what we should leave behind for them.

Why would we want a world that doesn’t value our humanity? What would be the purpose of that?

Even the mere act of me starting this whole blog thing (?) is so human. I have so many problems and complaints and normally, I just keep them to myself or develop a whole project idea not meant to see daylight for who knows how long.

I’m sure as hell not gonna post every little grievance or major analysis on my one social media which I barely use myself. So what am I supposed to do then? Throw my feelings into ChatGPT and let it validate me? What would be the point of that? It doesn’t ultimately impact the world in any sort of way.

But I can put them here, let random people find it, and maybe that’ll be my contribution to my own human experience and the minute experiences of others.

Even the writing of this post is taking a lot longer than I hoped because I’m coming up with new things to say and incorporating other ideas as I go and I have a life outside of this. So even though all this fast food chaos actually happened weeks ago, I’m still building on that experience just by trying to communicate something about it.

This whole chaotic thing turned into a story to capture a lot of ideas that have been swimming in my head for a while because the very essence of humanity is turning the chaos and vastness of reality into a story to communicate to others.

And it’s not just the mere ability to communicate with others. I could brain dump into a chatbot and generate an article, but it wouldn’t be anything more than just what I’ve already thought of in a specific paragraph order. An AI can’t get up and go live life and come back to the article days later and think of a new idea to add. Sometimes all you need is a good night’s sleep to allow your brain to process and reinvigorate itself.

Plus, who wants to just consume content for the sake of it and not know there’s a real personality behind it? Why do people watch certain content creators or subscribe to certain writers? It’s because they want to show up for the person, not the content.

Even the fact that I feel compelled to let you know every extraneous detail and remind you about the timeline yet again and how this all happened way before you’re reading it, even though said timeline doesn’t affect you at all, that’s the weirdness of humanity.

It’s the ability to communicate who we are — and to have something to communicate in the first place. Otherwise, what’s the point? You can have AI generate a bunch of topics for you to discuss, but if you don’t care and you haven’t lived life, then what exactly do you have to say? And to whom?

This is the value of human thought.

Reactions to the real world based on your own life experiences, the instinct to connect dots that have never before been connected, a fighting urge to put your imperfect voice out into the world — even the most polished piece of prose can’t capture this lived experience.

I’m not saying you’ll never need AI for anything ever. In fact, I’d love to see if AI can help out in the world of medicine, for instance (though that might come with some data privacy concerns to sort out, and the environmental concerns as usual).

Yes, the world is changing and there are new technologies on the rise. Maybe this tech can help us do things we’ve never done before.

But let’s not underestimate our own capacity for thought, the value of our experience, and our ability to connect with others. We need to think intentionally about what these new technologies should be used for rather than using it to replace what makes us human.

In that case, maybe this AI craze is actually a good thing.

Just as it took a pandemic for us to realize we’d rather be home with friends and family than stuck in a cubicle or classroom 40+ hours a week, maybe we’ll now learn to better value human thought, experience, connection, and communication

Because no computer in the world can ever go outside, take a short drive to Wendy’s, and in a series of chaotic events, have to pawn off the spicy nuggets to its brother because an automation forgot to write down honey mustard.

Update

I had to order Donato’s again for my brother and I got so fed up with the system, I just hung up, called back, and bypassed directly to the in-store person.

On the other hand, I had to go to that Wendy’s again (also for my brother, I sense a pattern here), and it actually went well? This time I was prepared, there was a display where they were transcribing my order, and when the AI asked if there was anything else I could say no and move ahead.

My concern with this though is again, you can’t exactly ask stuff or interact with it if you have questions about the menu. Also, it might have trouble picking up non-American accents, and it obviously still has the capacity to make mistakes. But again, it remains to be seen whether this will actually become a usefully incorporated tool that alleviates stress for the workers, or if it’s just another burden both employees and customers have to deal with.

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