Mom at the drive-thru realized it was her son behind the counter. So she decided to play an epic prank on him

People play pranks on each other only because they’ve got a certain camaraderie between them. For strangers, pranks may feel offensive or downright humiliating, but when both parties have a healthy relationship, playing pranks becomes an exciting way for them to strengthen their bond. One mom, whose son works in Panera Bread’s drive-thru division, put together a full-fledged prank as a part of healthy family fun. Unknown to her son, she visited the restaurant’s drive-thru and placed an impossibly large order. Upon recurring dismissals, when her son recognized who she was, he said something that made people roll in laughter. The video of this hilarious interaction was recently posted on TikTok by the mom’s daughter, art historian August Hagedorn (@hagelicious). The video attracted over 44,000 views in less than a week and is still counting.

“My mom every time she shows up to visit my brother at work,” the clip’s caption reads. The video opened with the mom speaking in the speakerphone of the drive-thru window, while the car was parked in front of a green signboard that read “Order here.”  While fidgeting her fingers, she said, "Can I get, like, 20 different platters?”

The employee on the other side, likely to be her son, confirmed again and asked her what kind of platters she wanted to order. She said she wanted to order “20 platters of bagels with a schmear.” Taken aback, the server replied, "I'm sorry, say that again?" The mom repeated her order, and meanwhile, she turned around to face the camera in the car and let out a giggle.

As the video continued, she kept on insisting that she wanted a “platter,” to which, he finally said, “We don’t have that. I am sorry.” She again said that she wanted 20 platters while cracking up in laughter in the car. By this time, the staff on the other side of the speakerphone were so annoyed that they finally checked their camera to see who she was. That’s when her son knew, and then he said, "Mom, you can drive away. You need to.”

People found that the riotous clip was too funny to control their laughter. Many of them flooded the comment section with laughter emojis. “I was waiting to see who she was to the worker. Lol Mom,” exclaimed @jahollywood. Others shared personal experiences of working as a drive-thru employee. @justa35yearoldlady recalled when they worked at McDonald’s in high school, “A friend's mom always came through ordering the most random things like a bucket of chicken.” @coveredinyou shared the experience when they worked at Dunkin Donuts, “My dad used to show up and pretend to order like 8 dozen donuts in the drive-thru!”

Keeping humor aside, in all seriousness, working as a drive-thru or a fast-food worker is a thankless job. Despite all the training one gets, the job takes experience and is riddled with frustrating hurdles. In such a scenario, dropping a bomb on the employees by placing large orders can add to their stress, hence, is not a good idea. In this case, however, the mom was familiar with all the working behind the drive-thru window, who understood her playful sentiment. After the prank was over, they came over to her car to say hello and greet her, she revealed in a comment. She added that she does this because she knows that her son loves her surprise visit, “but we would never do this to a random drive-through.”

You can follow August Hagedorn on TikTok to watch more random instances with her family members.