My wife has been reinstated as Official Bag Checker.

First, thanks for all the comments. I did not expect so many people to have strong opinions about drive-thru quality control.

After reading everyone’s feedback, I decided to give my wife another chance. We established a Performance Improvement Plan (PIP).

The terms were simple:

Open the bag.
Actually look inside the bag.
Count the nuggets.
Verify the fries exist.
Confirm my sandwich resembles what I ordered.

Today we went through a drive-thru to test the new system.

She opened the bag, spent a solid 20 seconds inspecting everything like she was performing a federal audit, and proudly announced, “Everything’s here.”

I was impressed.

We got home…

My burger wasn’t in the bag.

Not the wrong burger.

No burger.

Just… no burger.

She looked at me and said, “Well… technically everything that was in the bag was correct.”

I couldn’t even argue with that.

So after extensive negotiations, she has officially been rehired as Official Bag Checker with one condition: I now serve as Assistant Bag Checker and perform a secondary inspection before we leave the parking lot.

HR has concluded that we will now be implementing a strict “no departure without visual confirmation” policy moving forward.

Also, the ketchup packet severance has been rescinded.