I honestly don’t know if I’m just getting older or if the world has started moving at a speed my brain can’t keep up with anymore. It’s supposed to be a simple thing, right? Driving through, picking up dinner, heading home to the quiet of my own living room in Dayton. But sometimes, even the most basic interactions turn into a spectacle, and for some reason, I’m always the one in the spotlight.

It was a Tuesday, the kind of day that feels long before it even starts.

The kids were hungry, complaining from the backseat about everything and nothing at all. I decided to give in. I pulled into the KFC on 4th Street, the one with the flickering sign that I’ve passed a thousand times but never really look at. I wasn’t in a bad mood, just tired. The kind of tired that settles behind your eyes and makes you lose your grip on reality.

I pulled up to the speaker. I could hear the background noise of the kitchen through the distorted box. I saw the kids in the rearview mirror, fighting over a tablet. I just wanted to get them their food and get back to the house. When the woman’s voice came over the intercom, polite and clipped, I didn’t even think.

“A kids meal with a leg!” I said, probably a bit too loud.

There was a pause. A long one. Then she came back. “Ok! Which side?”

That was when the static in my brain really kicked in. I sat there in my sedan, staring at the plastic casing of the speaker box, and I just froze. I didn’t think about potatoes. I didn’t think about coleslaw or wedges. I thought about the chicken. Why would a leg have a side? Does the left leg taste different from the right? Are they different sizes? I felt like I was being asked to choose between two different destinies.

I looked at the dashboard. I looked at the steering wheel. I looked at the kids, who had stopped fighting and were just staring at the back of my head. I didn’t want to look stupid. I wanted to be decisive. I wanted to be the kind of mom who knew exactly how a fried chicken anatomy lesson was supposed to go.

“I’d like the right side!” I blurted out. I added, “I don’t know what the difference is?”

I felt proud of that, for about three seconds. I thought I had solved the mystery. I thought I had navigated the hidden language of fast food. I sat there with my hand on the gear shift, waiting for her to tell me how much I owed. I was ready to drive to the window and collect my perfectly assigned chicken leg.

Then, there was silence. It wasn’t the kind of silence that happens when someone is checking a screen. It was the heavy, building kind of silence that tells you that you’ve done something truly bizarre. And then, the laughter started. It wasn’t a mean laugh. It was the kind of laugh that comes when you’ve been standing on your feet for six hours and someone finally says something so ridiculous you can’t help but collapse into it.

“No hunny,” she said, her voice cracking. “Which side would you like to go with the leg? Mash potatoes or wedges?”

The realization hit me like a splash of ice water. It wasn’t a choice about the chicken. It was about the sides. It was about the potatoes. I didn’t just feel embarrassed. I felt like the entire world had shifted on its axis, and I was the only one who hadn’t been given the memo. I looked down at my hands. I looked at the empty space in the cup holder. I felt my face turning bright red, a heat that started at my neck and climbed all the way to my ears.

“Oh,” I whispered. I don’t even think the mic picked it up. “Oh, I see.”

I think I mumbled something about wedges. I don’t remember paying. I don’t remember pulling forward to the window. All I remember is the sensation of wanting to evaporate right there in the driver’s seat. I wanted to sink into the floorboards, past the transmission, down into the asphalt of the drive-thru lane.

When I got to the window, the young woman was still smiling. She had tears in the corner of her eyes, the real kind. She handed me the bag, and our fingers brushed for a second. She didn’t look at me like I was a burden. She looked at me like I was just another person trying to make it through a Tuesday.

“It happens,” she said, still chuckling. “You wouldn’t believe the things people say here.”

I drove away, the smell of the chicken filling the car, the kids finally quiet as they dug into their meals. I felt a weird mix of humiliation and relief. It was such a small thing. It was just potatoes and chicken. But it felt like the culmination of everything that had been going wrong lately. The missed appointments, the forgotten birthdays, the way I sometimes walk into a room and completely forget why I’m there.

I pulled into my driveway and turned off the engine. The silence of the house wrapped around me. I sat there for a long time, listening to the ticking of the cooling engine. I kept thinking about that “right side” comment. I wondered if I had chosen the wrong side, would it have tasted like chicken, or would it have tasted like irony?

I went inside and opened the bag. The food was warm. The wedges were crispy. It was exactly what I had asked for, even if the way I asked for it made no sense to anyone else. I sat at the kitchen table and ate one of the wedges, staring at the wall where the calendar hung, full of appointments I hadn’t even checked yet.

I think about that night sometimes, when things feel particularly heavy. It wasn’t a life-changing moment. It didn’t break my marriage or lose me my job. But it was a reminder of how thin the line is between being a functional adult and being someone who is just holding on by a thread. I never did go back to that KFC. I don’t think I could handle the look on the girl’s face if she recognized me.

Maybe that’s the real tragedy of it. Not the embarrassment, but the fact that I’m still letting a moment of confusion define how I see myself. I’m still sitting in that driver’s seat, waiting for the woman behind the speaker to tell me I made the right choice, even though I know deep down that there is no right side. There’s just the order, the wait, and the meal you get at the end.

I keep trying to find a lesson in it, but I don’t think there is one. Sometimes you just ask for the right side, and you get what you asked for, and it’s enough. Or maybe it’s not. Maybe the fact that I can still laugh about it means I’m doing okay, or maybe it just means I’ve reached the point where I don’t mind looking foolish anymore.

I think about the kids, too. They didn’t notice. They didn’t care about the sides or the legs or the confusion. They just wanted to eat. They were in the moment, completely oblivious to the fact that their mother had just had a total, unmitigated breakdown over a menu item. They were lucky. I want to be that lucky. I want to be someone who eats the potato and moves on.

I don’t know why I’m telling you all this. Maybe I just needed to put it into words. Maybe I needed to see it written down to know it actually happened, and that I didn’t dream it up during one of those sleepless nights. It’s a small thing. But it feels big. It feels like the start of something, or maybe the end of something.

I keep looking at the door, thinking maybe I should get up and go for a drive. But then I think about the drive-thru. I think about the speaker box. I think about the lady. And I realize that I’m not ready to be asked what side I want. Not yet. I think I’ll just stay here in the quiet for a little while longer. I’ll keep the lights low, and I’ll listen to the house settle, and I’ll wonder if the right side was ever really the answer at all.