Quirky fears—we all have them and anyone who boldly exclaims they are not afraid of anything either never gets out of the house, or is a lying fool. Most of our fears are pretty common like being afraid of spiders, clowns or my perpetual fear of falling to my death any time I get more than five feet off the ground. After all, God gave us gravity to keep our feet on the ground for a reason.

However, if we all had the same handful of fears the world would be a rather boring and uneventful place. One of my quirkier fears is messing up an order while going through a drive-thru. I’ve come to learn this is commonly referred to as Drive-Thru Order Panic, or at least that is what I found on Google. 

Anyone who has ever tried to have me order food at a drive-thru before, mainly my family, will attest it’s a rather roller coaster experience of just randomly ordering items that don’t exist, to completely forgetting what someone told me just seconds earlier. There have even been occasions in the past where I just randomly ordered the #1 at Arby’s with no apparent idea of what I actually ordered, even after our food came.

I’m taking a light-hearted take on this, of course, but I would really like to watch the faces of fast food workers when I am stumbling through a simple order at McDonald’s and acting like I haven’t been out of my house in decades. I’m sure they think I am some 95-year-old guy who doesn’t have a cell phone and no idea of what this device I am speaking through to order my Big Mac really does. 

That leads me to today. Over the course of the summer my family traveled to quite a few different communities in the tri-state area, oftentimes around dinner time, which would routinely result in stopping by a fast food establishment. Since I would drive separately most of the time due to scheduling conflicts or commitments, I frequently found myself picking up food for our family, or a treat from Starbucks or some place called 7 Brew. 

Now I am neither young, nor young at heart, but after going to 7 Brew probably a half dozen times this summer, I still am unable to actually order a drink on my own without the assistance of my family or a worker at the establishment. I am sure the workers are swapping stories about me at parties in the Fargo-Moorhead area.

For those of you who have never been to a 7 Brew before, or have a teenager at home to tell you why they are so cool, think of them as a millennial take on creating the most confusing establishment to order a coffee you have ever encountered. Do you want an iced coffee? They are available, but only if you put the correct 15 words in sequence to create some concoction that tastes a lot better than it looks. 

Do you want to go inside? Try again as everything is done in a drive-thru, which is awesome for people who panic when faced with a large menu and an employee waiting for you to quickly order your food so they can keep the line of traffic going.

It got to a point with my family over the summer where I had them text me their order so I can simply read the employee some mishmash of words that doesn’t make sense to anyone over the age of 25.

This all leads me to one of the last times I went to a 7 Brew a few weeks ago. I had a handful of drinks I was ordering, all typed out in one single text message. I was prepared and ready to finally conquer this unconquerable establishment for us older people.

I pulled out my phone and quickly read the first line, “two blood orange seven fizz soda.” There was a pause that may have been just seconds, but felt like an eternity.

“Um what did you just say?” asked the puzzled worker.

I panicked and in a minute I thought I might have said something inappropriate like referencing a new TikTok craze, to this poor college student.

“Yeah they just want two blood orange seven fizz soda. Don’t you have a two blood orange thingy?” It seemed straightforward to me but who knows.

She politely shook her head and I went on to the next item. 

“One brew lagoon,” and then it hit me, perhaps the two in front of the word blood meant how many I needed and not some weird dragon blood drink. I got whatever this blue thing was ordered and went back to the top of my list.

“Do you have anything with a blood orange in the title?” I asked for a second time.

She went on to tell me they had exactly what I ordered, but she didn’t understand what the two had to do with the order. There was a lot of confusion until we both realized it was the number of drinks I needed.

Wanting nothing other than this painful ordeal to end I simply said “can I just get an iced coffee?” It didn’t seem like a big ask, but apparently there isn’t such a thing there.

She asked what flavor and I repeated “an iced one,” which I guess is not, nor ever was, an actual flavor but more of a state of mind.

I remembered seeing a sign for some kind of a campfire or s’more drink while driving up to the drive-thru so I quickly said that not knowing what it was I was actually ordering, nor whether I just imagined that to get this painful experience over. 

Trying not to laugh, she said “you look kind of like a Caribou guy so why don’t you tell me what you order there and I’ll just make something close to that here.”

Apparently Caribou is for middle-aged men, but after this brutal five minute interaction where several cars switched lanes, I finally got these drinks ordered and pulled around front, only to see the staff at 7 Brew laughing quite hard at what I can only assume was the most difficult ordering of four drinks known to mankind. 

So if anyone knows of a person working at the 7 Brew in Moorhead, Minn., there is a chance you may hear a story about some confident 44-year-old guy who couldn’t even get an order right that was texted to him on his phone—yep that’s me and I’m not afraid to say I have taken college tests that were easier than trying to order a drink at a millennial coffee shop.