Mario was a terrible role model

Recently I spent a week hanging out at my parents house. Since they have retired to Florida I find it to be more than a little boring when I am down there. I don't know anyone and after about 11 you can be assured that I'm the only one left awake. Luckily there is some salvation for me, my Nintendo.

Many times I have considered bringing it back home to Chicago so that I can waste away countless hours of the day playing Contra but I figure it's safer for my relationship to leave it in Florida. I was rocking my way through Super Mario Bros 3, the game sorta responsible for my crush on Jenny Lewis via the ridiculous movie The Wizard, and a thought hit me. Mario's life is absolutely horrid. All that he has going for him is a pipe dream (heehee) that he will save the Princess and they'll live happily ever after. In order to get that he has to endure horrors that would drive any man to madness. Giant turtles, ghosts, flying fish, asshole turtles with hammers, and cliffs galore. There is seemingly no where in Mario's world that isn't directly next to a cliff that will surely end you shall you fall. Why even go on? Is any woman worth all of that? I'm sure the Princess is a fine lady but damn, enough is enough. After receiving the 4th worthless P Wing from her after saving some ugly king from being a lady bug I would rip that shit up and head back home.

As I pondered this I stumbled upon a bigger thought, would I actually want to be any video game hero? It's an interesting question because so much of the allure to video games is living out fantasies in a way. I'll never make the NFL but I can tear it up in a season of Madden. My poor eyesight keeps me from any dream of being a pilot but I can pilot my own F-16 in AfterBurner. Yet when you sit back and actually consider the lives of any of the famous video game heroes their lives are absolutely atrocious. I'd much rather live my boring little life than have to go through even half the bullshit that the Contra dudes did. Isn't it hard enough to climb up a waterfall without bridges exploding and automatic guns shooting at you the whole damn time? I wanted to highlight just how horrendous the existence of most ordinary video game heroes was.

• The Chef in Burger Time: He's a simple short order cook. He's probably not in the greatest shape and now he has to make burgers the size of Buicks while being chased by man sized hot dogs and eggs. His only weapon? Pepper. No gun. No sword. Not even a damn spatula. Pepper.
• Samus: At least Metroid's hero is a pretty hot lady, I'm sure she has a pretty great life once she gets out of the hell she is trapped in. Only problem? SHE WILL NEVER GET OUT. All the Metroid games last for frickin' ever.
• Donkey Kong (I'm focusing on the Donkey Kong Country Kong here): Finally Donkey is not a villain and he can relax at home with some bananas. No, he can't? He has to jump into all sorts of goddamn barrel cannons to go anywhere, many times he is unable to tell if he will be flung to a certain death or not? Fuck. Sucks for him.
• Any Random Mortal Kombat Character: After struggling through 10 fights where I was shot with a spear, turned into ice, and hit by countless fireballs I have narrowly survived only to fight a four armed behemoth and a damn near unbeatable boss. Now I'm . . . champion. That's it? No riches, no women, nothing. I just get to be champion. Wonderful.
• Kirby: Uh, actually his life isn't bad at all. He just eats everything in his way. I'm sure he has some horrible bowel issues. 

 I could go on and on. Why did I spend all of my childhood thinking that it would be so cool to be one of these characters? As best their lives could be considered infernal yet I spent half my time away from the Nintendo pretending to be them. Look at the Mario universe of characters, even when they engaged in fun activities like go karting it was still possible for them to get killed by a rogue turtle shell. When I relax I go out of my way to make sure that death is not even a remote possibility unlike these morons who use their brief respite from danger to drive on a road made out of a rainbow in the middle of a bottomless void. WHO WANTS TO LIVE LIKE THAT?!! Not me, that's for damn sure. The only video game hero I would consider to be a role model would be Leisure Suit Larry, now that would be a sweet life.

Smells like arrogant entitlement

When it comes to a long standing tradition of being the absolute greatest in their field few organizations can ever hope to achieve what the New York Yankees have accomplished. Wait a second, you didn't think I was talking about on field success and championships, did you? Because I wasn't. No, I was talking about the most impressive feat accomplished by the Yankees and their fans; being the world's largest douchebags for close to 100 years.

I'm sure that any amount of success will ruin the fan base of any sports team. It definitely makes them puff their chest out a little more, arrogance seeps in after a while. Eventually they will start talking about the Aura and Mystique of their shitty stadium (sadly not dancers at Scores like Schilling insinuated) and have internal debates about whether or not the overpriced mercenary they brought in will ever be "a true Yankee." Eventually one would think that this would ebb but remarkably it never has. Their douchbaggery may quiet down for a little while and then they go and do this.

The Yankees made a fucking cologne. Are you kidding me? Deadspin did a smell test of it the other day and the results were that it smelled a bit like Fruit Stripe gum. Personally I couldn't give a shit what it smelled like, I'm already appalled at it's very existence. Yankee cologne? What's it supposed to smell like? A combination of the soothing gel Jeter places on his herpes sores and the stale beer/piss stench of the bleachers at the old Stadium? Who the hell wants a cologne promoting a sports team anyway? When I want to impress the woman folk I don't think to cover myself in the scent of a bunch of dudes who have been sweating for the last 4 hours.

Despite the obscene price ($62 for a 3.4 ounce bottle at Macy's) I can guarantee that it will sell like gangbusters. I'm willing to bet that this Yankee superfan already has a case sitting in his mom's basement right between his Hideki Irabu bobblehead and his Andy Hawkins jersey.

So, hat's off to the New York Yankees for cementing their role as the douchiest franchise in the history of sports. Enjoy that cologne.

I'm trying to break your heart

Yesterday was a pretty weird day for our hero. Early in the day I had read a bunch of stuff about how it was the tenth anniversary of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot by Wilco. Of course I was irritated by most of what I read, big surprise. I just don't think that after a mere ten years one can proclaim an album to be classic and wax nostalgic about it. I also think that so much of the hype about YHF isn't based on the album's greatness (it is a great album, not debating that) but more focused around the crazy story about how it got shelved by their record company and the way Wilco had to fight to get it released. This is a long way of saying that I listened to the album a few times yesterday and as I watched the Blackhawks lose to the Coyotes in the worst way imaginable I heard Jeff Tweedy repeating "I'm trying to break your heart" in my head.

After I came home from watching the game at a dive bar I couldn't get the song nor the actual heartbreak dealt by the Hawks out of my head. I kept thinking about the idiocy of throwing so much of my well being into something I can't control in the slightest. The fact that my entire day was ruined by a bunch of millionaires inability to hit a frozen chunk of rubber past a behemoth millionaire goalie is moronic. As much as I hate to admit it I'm an adult. Why do I care so much about such completely trivial things? I don't have a good answer.

The amount of time I invest in shit that doesn't matter is mind blowing. I read everything I can about the teams I love, I watch as many of the games as possible and spend many hours over many beers arguing over them. For what? What's the end game? Most years it's me feeling like complete shit for a couple of days after the season. Odds are that my team isn't going to win a title and I'm going to get that miserable feeling. Even if I was the biggest front runner of a sports fan (Yankee, Laker, Red Wing and let's say Packers since they look like they could be dominant for a while to come still) I would still spend most years disappointed in the end. And I would be an asshole and a horrible human being to boot.

I've been spending all winter trying to get over the atrocities of last September (I'm a Red Sox fan). I spent the entire winter getting my hopes up that things would be different and better this year. I had planned out an entire summer of watching winning baseball. We're not even a month into the season and I already know it's not to be. They are terrible. TERRIBLE. Do I give up? No. I read more articles online hoping to get some insight into how they can fix the problems, I watch the games with extra intensity hoping that one good at bat can turn the whole season around. When I am already confident that there will be no successful payoff in the end I should back away from the season, fold my cards so to speak. Instead I'm completely irrational and invest myself even deeper into the season. Despite claiming I have given up 15 times in the last week I found myself buying tickets to go see the shit show in person tomorrow night.

Why do we enter into this whole charade of fandom in the first place? We all know that in the end we're going to end up with a broken heart. I make fun of my buddy Mike all the time for being a "sports slut." While he loves sports more than just about anyone I know he doesn't have any strong team affiliations. He just likes the games and all the players. Sure, he roots for some teams more than others, that's only natural. Yet he has no problem rooting for the Bears in the early game and then the Packers in the late game. Nor would he consider a 2-10 Purdue football season successful if the 2 wins were Indiana and Notre Dame while I would deem it better than losing in the Rose Bowl. It really seems like he has it all figured out in a lot of ways. Except it still feels wrong. It's like he's not putting his heart out there in the way that an obsessive fan does with his favorite teams. Kinda like the guy who is a playa and goes through a lot of chicks but has no serious relationships. While he may never have the crushing heartbreak that causes him to sit in a dark room for a week listening to The Smiths (2003 ALCS and Aaron Fucking Boone) he also won't get to experience the ecstasy of finding true love (2004 Dave Robert's stolen base and beyond.)

You know what? I can handle a couple of days of feeling miserable at the end of each sports season. It's the price I pay, right? If it wasn't for the heartbreak, and goddamn there has been a lot of heartbreak, moments like this wouldn't be so tremendous.

If you don't like fish your tastebuds are broken

While I have spent the majority of my life in the lovely state of Illinois (blech) I am from California. I grew up in Walnut Creek which is about 30 miles from San Francisco. Right next to San Francisco there is this place, it's pretty big, it's called The Pacific Ocean. When I get homesick (it's hard to say that it's homesick when you haven't lived there for 17 years but there isn't a better word for it) there are two things that I miss more than anything: the smell of the ocean and fresh fish. I also kind of miss fog but it's a distant third. I love smelling the salt on the breeze, I love staring out into the unending blue and I even love the ghastly smell the sea lions produce as they have taken over Pier 39.And when it comes to eating the bounty of the sea I love it all.

This is why I get filled with a deep rage when people flippantly pronounce that they don't like fish. How can someone make such broad generalizations about such a vast array of deliciousness? More often than not it is because they were raised far from the ocean and when you say "fish" they hear "Gorton's Fish Sticks" or even more terrifyingly "Filet O' Fish." I recognize that 20 years ago there wasn't exactly an abundance of fresh seafood here in the heartland but all of that has changed my friend. It's entirely possible to be eating a halibut* that was enjoying his ugly little life swimming off the shores of Alaska yesterday for dinner tonight. Despite being able to obtain tasty and fresh fish I find that there are an astounding number of people who outright refuse to even try it**.

I understand that everyone's tastes are different but I'm not willing to accept that it's possible to just not like fish. If it swims chances are that I have gladly eaten it and there is one thing I know for certain, every kind of fish tastes different. Sure, there are similarities in the way that all fruit tastes the same. Yet if someone refuses an apple and says "I don't like fruit," they will be completely derided by their friends for eating like a 3 year old, and rightly so. For some reason most people accept it when applied to fish. Well, not any more my friends. I'm leading a crusade to out these people for who they really are, scaredy cats who don't like anything different.

The simple fact of the matter is that tuna tastes just as much like clams as carrots taste like brussel sprouts. Lumping the two together as saying they taste fishy just tells me that you didn't actually try and taste them. Instead you held on to an idiotic belief that fish is weird, foreign and gross and choked down the delicious clam in hopes that you will be rewarded for your adventurousness. I'm willing to put up with people easing their way into eating seafood. Start off with some fried calamari which essentially tastes like all fried food. You don't need to begin your seafood journey with raw oysters or sushi. Just fucking try something. Get it out of your mind that meat comes in Chicken, Cow and maybe Pork. There's a whole damn delicious world out there under the sea and as my good friend Sebastian said;
"Under the sea
Darling it's better
Down where it's wetter
Take it from me
Under the sea
Nobody beat us
Fry us and eat us."

See, even animated lobsters know that they are the tastiest food around. Who are you to argue with him? Go ahead and take that leap and eat something a little different. Just remember that saying something tastes like "fish" is about as descriptive as saying something tastes like "food," and it makes you look like an asshole.


* I have always had a theory that the cuter the animal the tastier it is. Lamb - adorable and appetizing! Duck - divine and delicious! Chicken - Normal looking, nothing special and  pretty standard acceptable food. The halibut throws a giant wrench in my theory. Have you ever seen a halibut? They are fucking disgusting looking. They look as if they are covered in brown slime, both eyes are on one side of it's body near a weird ass pig nose. If you put a halibut next to a swordfish it's like a beauty contest between Sloth from Goonies and Salma Hayek. But I'll be goddamned halibut tastes amazing.
** While I am infuriated by her taste in food I give mad props to my friend Jenny Schindler Melander for always trying at least a miniscule bit of fish each time she is around it. I've come to the conclusion that her tastebuds must be broken and it is no longer her fault.

Woah man, 4/20 is totally our special day to, uh, what? Funyuns.

Every once in a while I get a little worried about the posts I decide to write. As a rule I try to piss off as few of my friends as possible per post. If I didn't care about what my fellow readers thought I would have already posted my 8 post oral history of Brian Foss' inability to play video games, from Ken Griffey Jr Baseball to GoldenEye and beyond! As I have more than a few friends who partake in the marijuana smoking I was hesitant to rip on them for an entire post. Then I remembered how mellow they all are, especially today, and figured that this would be akin to making fun of the Amish on TV. No danger at all. So without further adieu. . .

I'm not a pot smoker. Never have been and never will be. It's not that I'm straightedge or any of that nonsense I've just never enjoyed smoking of anything. When there is smoke in my lungs I freak the fuck out and cough all over the place. This is not an enjoyable experience for me. If you put some pot in a brownie I would wolf it down gladly. In fact, I can't think of any substance I wouldn't eat in brownie form. Mmmmmm, brownies. This is all a long way of saying that I'm not anti-drug. I'm pretty pro-drug in fact. If you want to get fucked up go ahead and get fucked up. Just don't make a phoney baloney holiday about the whole thing and fill up my entire twitter and facebook feeds with your garbage.

Do people even know why they celebrate 4/20 in the first place? You should really head over to read about it on wikipedia, it's such a wonderfully convoluted bunch of bullshit that only pot heads would use it as justification for a holiday. Seriously, the whole 4:20 thing is based around a bunch of stoners looking for a hidden crop and being unable to find it. Isn't that essentially the same thing Mormonism is founded on? Of course there are multiple theories about the origin, another being that 4:20 is the ideal time to smoke the ganj. Really potheads? You can't wait 40 more minutes until the end of work? Slackers.

Why do you need a special little day to celebrate pot smoking anyway? Why not just work it into all the other holidays that already exist? That's what alcoholics have been doing for years. St Patrick's Day, Cinco de Mayo, any family gathering and Thursday are all specified drinking holidays. Doesn't it seem to be more than a little idiotic to promote a holiday based on doing an illegal activity? I'm not trying to get in an argument about the legality of marijuana (I say legalize it and tax the fuck out of it) but the fact of the matter is that it IS illegal, how about a wee bit of discretion? Driving 30 mph in a car with Bob Marley and Sublime bumper stickers today is just about the most obvious way to ask the cops to arrest you. Oh, that's a very nice 5 foot tall water pipe you have in the front window of your on campus apartment, it certainly doesn't announce that you are breaking the law or anything. Give me a fucking break. Just smoke your pot out of a discreet little hitter box and you'll be fine. I'm sorry if it doesn't have the same appeal or ritual that your 8 person hookah does but it doesn't make you look like an asshole desperate to get arrested either. Pretty sure you'll get just as fucked up.

I guess all my anger boils down to the idiocy of needing a special day to celebrate something that requires no celebration whatsoever. You like smoking pot, hooray. Now how about you just do so whenever you damn well please like everyone else does with their vices? If marijuana becomes legal in the US then I'll give you your special little holiday on the day that takes effect. Until then only a moron would celebrate a day that is representative of the time of day a bunch of idiots in San Rafael would gather to attempt to find a fictional marijuana crop. Seriously, it's asinine.

Mo hawks, Mo problems.

I was riding on a fairly empty bus the other day and I came to a horrible realization; two of the five people on the bus had mohawks. No, we were not headed toward the Fireside Bowl on the Fullerton bus 10 years ago, this was yesterday on the Irving Park bus. And I'm pretty damn certain that neither of my mohawk sporting friends had even heard of the Fireside Bowl. Why do I say this? Because they had mohawks for FASHION. At least, this is my guess. Not a lot of punks wear Armani Exchange where I come from, I'm just saying.

I see people with mohawks all the goddamn time nowadays and it makes my blood boil. I don't want to sound like an old man but back in my day having a mohawk meant something. If you had a mohawk you were a punk, period. Unless we're talking about way, way back in the day; then it meant you were part of the mohawk tribe. Even I'm not old enough to remember that. It was sort of a uniform for nonconformists, as silly as that may sound. If I saw a guy with a mohawk on the bus I could sit down next to him and discuss the latest Descendents album and I liked that. I liked the social profiling aspect of having a silly hair cut (mohawks, spiked hair, tri-hawks) and silly hair color; it basically let me know that we were on the same team. In my mind it was really no different than having a bunch of patches on your back pack or pins on your jacket.  

Now it seems like everyone has some sort of mohawk. Or, God help us, they have a fucking faux hawk. Look, if you are going to spend the time and stick all the gunk in your hair to get it to stand on end in the middle just shave the sides, don't half ass it, son. At first I was irritated because I felt that if you weren't a punk you didn't deserve to have a mohawk. Quickly I understood how silly that was and that wasn't where my hatred came from at all. It came from one simple reality:

MOHAWKS LOOK STUPID.

Seriously, they look awful. There is no good reason to have a mohawk unless you are a punk or you are about to go shoot Jodie Foster's pimp. I feel that when they are worn by punks that it is done in sort of tongue in cheek way and that's why I accept that. At least I think that my friends who have been mohawked in the past have always had that self awareness about it. Yet when I see some dope who is obviously in art school with a mohawk I immediately know there is only one reason he has a mohawk, because he thinks it looks good. That's what drove me so fucking bananas staring at the assholes on the bus yesterday. Every little aspect of their "look" had been meticulously crafted. They had perfect little outfits of skinny jeans and designer name clothes. . . and mohawks. I guran-damn-tee they went to a stylist to get their cool haircut as well. In the summer they might even frost the tips to look even more fierce.  Please.

Whatever tiny bit of coolness a person gains from a mohawk comes from the DIY aspect of it. You don't have a stylist fashion your mohawk for $75, you shave it yourself in a dirty bathroom while listening to Bad Brains.


(As an aside at the end here, if Krut or Ben reads this I will allow you 1 punch on the upper shoulder region. No more, no less.)

I hope Eagle Man eats the Geico Gecko

After spending the first fifteen years of my life outside of San Francisco I had a lot of culture shock to deal with when I moved to Morris, Il. Morris, for those of you who don't know, is a farm town of about 10,000 people an hour away from Chicago. Within my first few weeks of trying to adapt I saw my first grain elevator, heard every single joke about being gay or a surfer imaginable, had to wait 15 minutes in traffic for a combine to cross over a bridge and learned what "pop" was. None of this would compare to how my mind was blown the day I was introduced to Eagle Man.

 

While I do find the commercial amusing I believe that Eagle Man was the frontrunner of a trend that I find to be abhorrent; insurance mascots. Soon after Eagle Man came the Geico Gecko, Erin ESurance, the Geico Caveman, Flo from Progressive, Mayhem for All State and that fucked up wad of dollar bills from Geico. I'm sure that I have forgot at least 4 more bullshit Geico mascots but you get the point. We have had these characters shoved down our throats CONSTANTLY. The amount of money that insurance companies spend on advertising must be terrifying. Of course, insurance companies have more money than practically everyone else on Earth so it's not surprising. I just want to know what the point is with all these dopey characters they trot out.

If you are trying to sell me some toys it makes sense to trot out a guy in an animal costume performing some slapstick antics. Insurance seems like it should be dealt with a touch more gravitas. I guess the way I look at it is if I'm going to be spending thousands of dollars on something a year I don't want to buy it from a (sorta hot) cartoon broad with pink hair. Yet when insurance commercials try to be remotely serious they trot out Pedro Cerrano to warn you that every time you leave your house an army of goblin/rapist/thief/arsonists are going to destroy your shit and you will be left with nothing. It's as if there is no middle ground. Realism is also an option that they can't resort to or else no one would be interested. "Give us all of your money and we will keep you safe. Unless something happens and then we will fight you tooth and nail for every last cent and hopefully find a loop hole leaving us responsible for nothing," isn't exactly the kind of catchphrase that will have people lining up to purchase insurance. 

In order to be relatable to the masses insurance companies have to take the guise of an effeminate amphibian, how fucked up is that? Of course if you can't relate to a gecko maybe a midget general with a penguin henchman is more your style. Seriously. Commercials for the General Insurance make me certain that my water has been laced with LSD. 

Here is a short list of my problems with The General.

• He is a midget. Nothing against midgets but other than Napoleon there isn't a real history of midgets in the military. Pretty sure they have height requirements.
• He has no eyes. None. Just eyebrows.
• He hangs out with a penguin and we all know that penguins are not to be trusted.

• As far as I can tell he is quite a stud on the dance floor BUT THIS HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH INSURANCE.

These ads drive me absolutely insane. Just tell me what you want me to buy and make a good argument for it, I don't need everything sugarcoated by fucked up cartoons and penguins with proof of insurance wearing sunglasses in a night club.

Shut up and cut my hair!

I have found that as I get older and the amount of my hair decreases that my rage about having to get a hair cut increases accordingly. The reasons that I loathe getting my hair cut are pretty run of the mill; I don't like paying full price when the top of my head is mostly barren, I hate having my ears bent, I always end up with the back of my shirt wet and full of hair clippings. Pretty standard complaints. Yet I understand that if I want to stay in the good graces of my lovely girlfriend I can't keep looking like the boss from Dilbert. There is one thing that can really push me over the edge and make me consider never stepping foot into a barber shop again, a talkative stylist.

One way to avoid such a dilemma would be to go to a real barbershop instead of a Hair Cuttery. I am a glutton for punishment and insanely lazy so I won't travel a wee bit longer to get to a cool a barbershop. No, I insist on playing Russian Roulette. And their are at least 5 bullets in the gun, I always lose. of course I ended up with a middle aged woman who would not shut up. I'm pretty sure that she was incapable of it, kind of like how Kristen Stewart is unable to close her mouth. If she was saying something of interest I might have engaged her and had a nice little banter. I'm a pretty well rounded guy who can carry on conversations about comics, baseball, mid 90's south side suburban ska and Napoleonic era Russia; you know, the 4 things worth talking about. My stylist on the other hand was only versed in one topic of conversation, bitching about her family.

She went on and on about how she was the only one willing to take care of her mother and that's why she had power of attorney and how her brothers were taking her to court because they wanted the money and how there wasn't really any money and how no one loved her and her ex husband told her that the lawyers were trying to screw her and everyone was trying to steal . . . AD INFINITUM. If I was friends with her there would still only be a 7% chance that I wanted to hear about these problems. As a perfect stranger I absolutely could not give a fuck. It's not that I didn't care about her problems, I aggressively didn't care.

As she rambled on and on I found myself rooting against her in the story. I was really hoping it ended up with her being written out of the will and her mother breaking a cane over her head. Eventually she got so worked up that she completely stopped cutting my hair and started tapping me on the shoulder to make her point. Wonderful. Now this insufferable haircut is going to last even longer. Just when I thought I was at the breaking point and about to turn the clippers into a murder weapon she upped her game. She stopped talking about her family problems (yay!) and started to try and sell me all sorts of goop to put into my hair (SHITSTICKS!).

Seriously, the only way to make things worse was for her incessant rambling transitioning into non stop badgering for me to spend more money. Look, I should only get charged half price to begin with, I have a giant flesh yarmulke that takes up half my head. But no, I get charged full price anyway. On top of that you want me to spend 20 bucks on gel so I can spike up the seven hairs left on my head? If I use this great gel I can be the Pauly D of bald men? SHUT UP AND CUT MY DAMN HAIR!

As the haircut came to a merciful end I couldn't help but notice that she did a pretty solid job, so kudos there. I even acted really pleased when she gave me her card that said when she worked so that I could book a time with her again, hell, it wasn't acting. I was really happy because I now have a leg up on when I can get my hair cut by someone else. Winner: Charlie

The World Needs More Walk Up Windows

The other night I went out on the town and consumed many adult beverages. It was glorious. I even decided to call it an early night so as to not be a complete wreck the next day, that's how responsible I am. The majority of the night was spent trying to satiate my epic thirst for booze. While I was successful in this endeavor a horrible side effect of booze consumption snuck* up on me, the hunger. Yes, while my guard was attention was focused on trying to keep shots of Malort from reappearing on the bar a horrible hunger demon crawled into my belly. The demon wanted tacos and he wanted them immediately. Who am I to question the hunger? So I set out to obtain taco-y goodness.

I went to the local taqueria and was horrified to learn that it was closed. It was only 11:30 on a Friday night. This was highly unusual as I have never seen this place closed. Ever. It's open until at least 5 on weekends. Prior to this night I suspected they didn't even have a lock on the door. I banged my head on the door out of frustration and out of the corner of my eye I saw a beautiful beacon promising the tacos I craved so desperately, a KFC/Taco Bell. Now, I was not surprised by this, I live a mere block away from the place, but it was a revelation nonetheless. I swear that these eyes have never seen a more beautiful sight than Colonel Sanders' glowing face on that night.

There were a group of people inside eating so I pulled on the door. Locked. Oh, silly me, I grabbed a door that was out of service. I slid over to the opposite door and pulled with more might. Locked. I looked up at saw that the dining room was closed at 11, those people were just being allowed to finish their meal. I can't imagine anyone taking a half hour to eat fast food but that's a different rant for a different day. Luckily for my hunger the drive thru was open until 2.

I ain't no greenhorn, I know that the stunt that I was about to try was a long shot. The hunger would not allow me to retreat home with my tail between my legs and head for bed. No, the hunger demanded tacos. So I closed my eyes and heaved a Hail Mary; I walked up to the drive thru window. With the odds staked against me I used all of the suaveness I could muster.

Me: Pardon me? I know that it is unorthodox to walk up to the window but I am starving and I really would like to purchase some tacos.
Taco Warden: Inside is closed.
Me: Yes, I am aware. Since I'm here do you think you could possibly wrangle up some tacos?
TW: No. You need a car to go through the drive thru.
Me: I know that is how it is normally done but I don't have a car. There are no cars in line, I would really appreciate it. .
TW: NO. THE DRIVE THRU IS FOR CARS ONLY. IF YOU DON'T LEAVE I'M CALLING THE COPS.
Me: (Various expletives muttered under my breath as I walk away)

I get it. They have rules. At the same time they are a business and their goal is to make money, why wouldn't they take my hard earned cash in exchange for 3 poorly made soft tacos that would merely make a cameo in my digestive system? I wasn't walking in front of any cars, they weren't doing a damn thing. It took longer to argue with me than it wold have to simply give me my order. Hell, if they wanted me to go back and order through the intercom so they have an excuse when they fuck up my order I would have gladly done so but I wasn't given that option. As I fumed over being denied tacos I chowed down on an apple at home. I pretended it was a taco and even considered putting some Tapatio on it but came to my senses and did not. I needed to find a way to make sure that all the boys and girls afflicted with The Hunger after 11 wouldn't have to settle for an apple, for that is truly a fate worse than death.

Then it hit me. I will start a campaign based on the following fact: Taco Bell encourages drunk drivers. Yes, you heard me. Taco Bell is already widely known for being the preferred eatery of stoners so it is no surprise that they also cater to the drunk. When you make food that greasy and shitty you can't expect sober people to line up in droves. Drunks on the other hand will gobble down anything you give them. Yet for some draconian reason Taco Bell forces drunks to get behind the wheel in order to enjoy the wonders of the volcano menu. Seriously, think about it for a second. How many sober people are going to be cruising through a fast food drive thru at 1 am? Unless it's directly next to a highway it's going to be a very low number. Instead of being rewarded for being responsible I am denied the only thing that I crave, tacos. Do you know how many accidents and deaths are caused by drunk drivers? A lot. By my logic I am not just a responsible person for not driving but I am saving lives, lives that would have been sacrificed because Taco Bell won't let me purchase their delicious bounty. I AM A HERO AND I SHOULD BE SHOWERED WITH 72 VIRGIN TACOS. And a small Diet Pepsi since I'm watching my figure.

Honestly though, just sell me the damn tacos next time.



*I know that fancy schmancy grammar police like to point out that the past tense of sneak is sneaked as opposed to snuck. Well, guess what? I just used "snuck" and no body was confused by it, so there. I do what I want.