The Spring semester kind of kicked my ass. For reasons that now seem mundane and trivial, I barely made it to the end. When I came home after my last final, I cleaned my house and then I went to sleep and I’m only just now waking up. Sure, I’ve been doing things. I’ve been reading and cleaning and reading some more. I went to see Billy Joel and Elton John in Indianapolis. I even went to a skeezy bar with good, cheap drinks and a very loose interpretation of Fort Wayne’s smoking ban. But, mostly, I’ve been at Taco Bell.
Friends, I do not know how this happened, but I think I can partly blame Andy. You see, since he can’t eat gluten anymore, the only fast food place he can really frequent is Taco Bell. We don’t eat a lot of fast food, but sometimes it’s nice to have somewhere to go to get a snack or a cheap and quick dinner, you know?
I have never been a big Taco Bell fan, and I can’t really remember why so you’ll just have to take my word for it. It doesn’t matter anyway because I’m making up for it now. The first time I went to Taco Bell after the semester had ended, I didn’t have any Lactaid (a pill for my lactose intolerance) with me which meant that everything with sour cream was not an option. Usually, I get a chalupa or something with a sour cream-based sauce. If you’ve never eaten with me, you can’t imagine how incredibly one-note my appetite is. I have a certain thing that I eat at each place I go (except Henry’s, where I switch between three things). With my thing being unavailable to me, I was forced to reevaluate the Taco Bell menu. Have you ever looked at it, I mean really examined the menu? It is quite extensive. Suddenly, I was overwhelmed. I wanted one of everything. There are simple and fancy burritos, all kinds of taco-shaped items, and more than one way to get nachos. Who knew?
And we haven’t even gotten to the embarrassing part yet.
First, let me tell you about the chicken burrito. It’s basically just some chicken, some cheese, some rice, and some avocado/ranch dressing wrapped up in a tortilla but it is delicious. Did you get that? Say it like this “DEEEE-LISH-USSS.” And here’s the best part: It costs 89 cents! That is the real genius of Taco Bell. Everything is so cheap.
Now for the real reason I haven’t admitted my Taco Bell problem until now. They have this special kind of Mountain Dew there. It is called Baja Blast. This is what it looks like:
Pretty color but not exactly a color you want to drink, right? Well, that’s how any normal human being would react, but not me. No, I went there. I looked at that color and said, “I want to put that in my mouth.” Once I crossed that line from “pretty” to “drink,” there was no going back. I was in love. Baja Blast Mountain Dew is one of the most satisfying (non-alcoholic) beverage experiences I have ever had. I haven’t liked regular Mountain Dew for years, and although I had a brief but passionate affair with some kind of blue Mountain Dew with ginseng* during the last few weeks of the semester, I have never loved a Mountain Dew the way that I love the green Mountain Dew. The fact that it is only available at Taco Bell just compounds my shame.
If at this point you’re starting to wonder if I have become ridiculous, the answer is yes. Clearly, stable adult people do not develop emotional attachments to beverages with names like Baja Blast. Not to mention that even though it is only 4:30 in the afternoon, I could totally go for a chicken burrito right now.
So when you check my blog and see that it STILL hasn’t been updated and you wonder to yourself where I’ve been, now you know. I’ve been at Taco Bell.
*The internets tell me the blue Mountain Dew is called Voltage. Of course.
