Big Order at Little Taco Time
2005. I was living in Brooklyn, New York doing volunteer work and making a living as a furniture mover. At 225 lbs, I was a 6' 4" midwestern adonis with thinning blonde hair and the appetite of an emaciated dragon.
Moving furniture, especially in cramped, multi-level Brownstones, will take a toll on the body, but I was in my 20s and nothing could stop me. Throughout my 5 year occupancy of the Big Apple I’d made a bevy of friends, many of whom I still chat with regularly.
Ok, tenuous backstory complete.
Myself and a few friends were headed to Portland, Oregon for a wedding of a chum that year. One member of our party grew up in central Oregon while the rest of us didn’t know what to expect. Turns out it was so amazing I finally moved there/here 5 years later.
Upon arriving, four of us hopped in a rental sedan and drove to Bend, Oregon where the nuptials were to take place. After a few hours of meet and greets, followed by multiple samplings at Oregon breweries (the number of which absolutely dwarf the amount of Starbucks brick and mortars on a single New York city block. No seriously, every other building here seems to be a brewery) we decided it was time for food.
Our Pacific Northwest native suggested we go to a Taco Bell wannabe establishment called “Taco Time”. Being constantly hungry, I jumped at the opportunity to eat whatever was consumable around me. The only problem was, my wallet was somewhat lacking in the currency department.
“Is it cheap?” I asked sheepishly. My friend turned with a grin the size of the taco order we were about to place.
“Oh yeah. It’s cheap alright.” He was still grinning as we came to a stop in the derelict parking lot.
We entered the yellow building and saw the greatest sight a young glutton with a bottomless stomach could see:
We did a quick huddle and determined we could each eat 10 tacos. I reckoned I could eat more, seeing as we had two six packs of Deschutes Brewery waiting in the back seat of our car and I was a voracious man beast. However, my wallet cried out in shrill agony so I was forced to settle for 10 crispy shells with meat and cheese.
We approached the entrance of the made-to-look-like-a-cantina-from-mexico-in-the-1870s-but-wait-they-didn’t-have-cash-registers-back-then establishment and prepared to place our large order.
Here is where the story actually begins. What transpired next has changed, inspired, influenced and haunted me to this very day.
“Welcome to Taco Time! Can I take your order?” said a pale, dark haired white boy.
I was standing to the right of my friend who was ordering for the group, gazing at the dimly illuminated menu board and contemplating what other diarrhea-inducing morsels could fit into my belly. My eyes began to survey the operations taking place behind the fake granite countertop.
Several employees stood hunched with their hatted heads hovering above bins of sad cheese and watery refried beans, preparing an order of nachos with all of the day old toppings. Another dejected worker slowly pushed a bucket full of discolored mop water towards a back exit, most likely wishing for a quick and painless death to release him from the bonds of his fast food enslavement.
And then there was HIM. I did not and will never know this kid’s name (let’s just call him “The Go-Getter”) but his actions would change the course of history forevermore. My initial split second impression was that he openly pined to one day be among the upper echelon of the restaurant’s management team. He stood with his head held high and proud, talking on a black wall phone as if receiving direct orders from the president of the Taco Time empire.
“What’s that?” he was probably saying, “You want me to run all Taco Time operations in the Pacific Northwest and I get a company issued Dodge Neon with an Onstar system and Sirus XM preinstalled? Yes sir. I won’t let you down O’ Captain my Captain!” I’m pretty sure that’s what his lips were saying. It could’ve just been the incessant hunger clouding my poor lip reading skills.
The Go-Getter’s employee costume/outfit was without blemish. He had most likely neatly pressed and starched it the day before his shift during a sleepless night of sweaty anticipation. He knew Taco Time. He lived Taco Time. He was Taco Time.
My friend, without thought or regard for the fabric of the universe, calmly placed the order:
“We would like 40 tacos please.”
A chilling hush instantly fell over the now darkened expanse of Bend, OR. Time slowed to an infantile crawl while various water fowl fell from the sky, paralyzed beyond recovery. Locust appeared as if summoned from the underworld to blot out the sun. Somewhere, a shoddy reenactment of the gunfight at the OK Corral took place but no tourists were present to witness it.
I was still locked on The Go-Getter as the shockwave of food related words reached his ears like an atomic bomb being tested in the Nevada desert. His eyes, once full of life and promise, instantaneously morphed into a dual haven for terror and everlasting suffering. His once firm grip on the glossy phone receiver gave way while his fingers trembled like an earthquake in the bowels of the Mariana trench.
Transported into the bullet-time effect scene from The Matrix, he spun his oversized head to meet the would-be projectile challengers, intent on absorbing the blows rather than dodging the series of crippling attacks.
His eventual words, at first laden with trepidation, disbelief and uncertainty, evolved into a monument of breathy determination:
“I gotta go. We just got 40 tacos!”
He was the only soul to spring into action, slamming the phone receiver onto the set like he was holstering a CIA issued sidearm, commanding the morose prep counter corpses to life and movement. “Let’s go people!” he scrambled, accidentally spilling onions and lettuce all over the freshly mopped tiled floor.
The four of us looked at each other in amazement, wondering if we’d just unintentionally pulled the metal switch on an invisible electric chair.
The employee who was taking our order heroically broke the restrictive shell of the murky slow-motion cloud that laid heavily on the chaotic scene. “So, you want 40 tacos?” he said without an ounce of concern, “We can do that. $20 is your total.”
The Go-Getter, still intent on issuing commands from the center of a non-existent battlefield, was suddenly and violently usurped by the emergence of the badged and labeled manager. “Ok, that’s 40 tacos folks. Will somebody clean up that mess?” the man in the white shirt and cheap black tie motioned mechanically. Everyone except The Go-Getter fell into line and the preparation began with assembly line precision.
My three friends retreated to a window and pointed at something in the parking lot. A bird was pooping on our rental car and they began to laugh, but I was too preoccupied to witness this avian desecration. Rather, I stood still and silent, vacantly watching The Go-Getter’s countenance fluctuate rapidly between sublime mania and earth shattering dismay. His words still echoed in my head:
‘I gotta go! We just got 40 tacos!’
‘We just got 40 tacos…’
‘got 40 tacos…..’
‘40 tacos…………….’
The order was finished in under 5 minutes and we devoured half of the bland meal on the way to a friends house. We drank, we ate, we took a 4 hour nap and then went to the wedding.
The happy couple were married and everyone ate some more.
To this day I openly recount the tale of The Go-Getter, mostly to my disinterested cat. I often wonder what happened to that gangly kid. Did he ever go on to achieve the coveted position of Manager? Was he ever presented with a challenge like the order of 40 tacos again? Does he think of me as I still think of him?
Go-Getter, if you’re out there and reading this, “Hello” from Portland, Oregon. Your antics and misplaced concern haunt me to this day. I honestly think about you way too much. Please get out of my head and leave me alone forever or next time it will be 50 tacos.
