So, I pulled up behind a white SUV at the McDonald's drive-thru. The lady driver rolls her window down and immediately starts with the "uhhhh" and the "ummm". What is it about women and fast food? They never know what to order until it's their turn. Do they not know what's on the menu? Are they waiting to hear the day's specials? Is she asking if the Filet-O-Fish in season? Is she wondering what a Quarter Pounder weighs? Does she need a soft drink sommelier to help her pair the correct Hi-C flavor with her Big-N-Tasty Value Meal?
Men automatically know what they want when it's their turn to order. I have discovered why. Men keep fast food menus (and locations) in RAM. That is, we can recall this information instantaneously. As soon as I enter a KFC, Popeye's, White Castle, In-And-Out or McDonalds, I know what I'm having. The information is accessed very quickly.
When it comes to fast food, men can perfom many calculations per second, cross referencing past dining experiences and merge this data against realtime restaurant research: "I had a Arby's Beef-N-Cheddar in Phoenix back in 04 which was excellent. But I see a few of those on the rail which could be cold. Better to go with an Arby's French Dip which they will have to make from scratch and is served with gravy on the side that will easily rehydrate any stale bread. For side order, I'd really like Potato Cakes, but the mexican girl working the fry station has been giving me the eye so I might be able to smile at her and get a few extra Curly Fries out of it. Also, my wife is going to order a Santa Fe Salad because she wants to be healthy, thus I will need an EXTRA order of Curly Fries to compensate for all the fries she steals from me."
As a man, I performed all those processes in RAM in under a second. I had my order worked out before my gal got to the first apostrophe on the menu. That's because men store fast food information in RAM. (We also keep car models, sports statistics and sexual positions in RAM -- but that's another post.)
Oh, I'm not saying women are less intelligent than men. They also have and use RAM. They just use it for different data.
Women keep anniversaries in RAM. They keep baby names in RAM. They keep celebrity gossip in RAM.
Fast food menus are not stored this way with women. When she reads the menu, it's as if it's the first time she's ever encountered it. She needs to read the entire menu all the way through (twice) before ordering. And she can only do this when it's her turn to order. The time she spends waiting on line is better spent thinking about other things (like anniversaries, baby names and celebrity gossip).
Once she finally orders her food, this information is completely purged from her memory. I'm sure you've noticed this phenomenon. In fact, when she digs through the crisp, recyclable paper bag searching for her snack, you might even hear her ask, "What did I order?" Naturally, you can recite the precise details of her lunch back to her immediately and verbatim.
To which she'll reply: "That's not what I ordered."
(Sigh)