On a beautiful January day, I pulled up to the drive-through window at a local Steak ‘n Shake and ordered two milkshakes. I wanted a vanilla one for myself,and my 10-year-old son wanted a chocolate shake.

“I have to order at the window because I can’t hear,” I told the guy who opened the drive-through window. “I’d like two small shakes, one chocolate and one vanilla.”

He asked me to drive around again and order through the speaker. It is a company policy, he explained. The orders need to be taken through the speaker. I explained that even if I drove around again, I would have to order at the window. “I’m deaf; I can’t hear through the speaker,” I explained again.

He refused to give in. The discussion escalated. An explanation of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) was given, and still no shakes. “If you would have told me that you had a disability when you pulled up to the speaker, I could have accommodated you at the window,” he said.

I stated that I was going to file a complaint. “Go ahead,” he said, adding that he could call the cops on me for holding up the drive-through lane.

I sat there flabbergasted. Make that angry and flabbergasted. In the amount of time he spent explaining, directing, and arguing, he could have served the shakes, and we would have been on our merry way.

But instead, the window was closed in our face. “I’m done with you!” he said. Ah, but I wasn’t done with him. I motioned him to open the window again and took down his name and the corporation’s phone number. The window was again shut in my face.

As soon as I got home, I did two things. I called the corporate headquarters and I blogged about the incident on my personal blog: A Deaf Mom Shares Her World.  Suddenly, things began to happen. Another mom of a deaf daughter was so enraged at the incident that she called the local television stations and newspapers. FOX and ABC sent out reporters to my home and attempted to interview the Steak ‘n Shake employee. Nearly 100 other Web sites and blogs had picked up the story. The Steak ‘n Shake Corporation e-mailed me an apology and also issued a public apology.  

I met with three of the Steak ‘n Shake executives the following week. My aim was to make the corporation aware of the discrimination that happens at their drive-through window when people cannot physically use the speaker. As I learned from the outpouring of support that came afterward—many others had also either experienced frustration at drive-through windows or avoided them altogether.

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Find out what happens next for Karen, in  Two Milkshakes, Please—Discrimination at the Drive-Through, Part 2.

See Disability Advocacy Series: Arlene Mayerson and Mary Lou Breslin to learn more about disability advocates.