Friday, May 26, 2006

cinco de mayo revisted

This post may seem a little off, or it might seem completely normal for me. Either way, margaritas were involved.

We had Mexican food. By Mexican food, of course I mean the food you find in NY that vaguely resembles the food you hear about in movies based in CA. Sure there were Latinos in the kitchen, but I'm going to guess they were more Puerto Rican than Mexican. Also please note this is not a judgement call; I simply report the facts as they are presented to me. The important thing is: margaritas were involved.

So after (during) margaritas, I had to use the bathroom. I ask the waitress where it is, she tells me, and I go there. It seems like a good plan, but someone else is already in there. Instead of waiting in the kitchen, I wait a few feet away. At this point I've only had one margarita. *Side note: these margaritas are in water glasses, not traditional margarita glasses. They are bigger.* While I am waiting a few feet away, some guy cuts in front of me and waits in the kitchen. I don't have to pee that badly, so I let it slide. Instead of punching him, I assume that he didn't know I was politely waiting to pee instead of standing there for no reason. I go sit down.

Half a margarita later, the deed must be done. I return to the bathroom, which is still occupied. I can't stand to lose my place again, and I can't fight anyone for my place because of my pee-ness (don't read that the wrong way!). So I stand directly in front of the bathroom door, which it turns out is also directly in front of the ice box and dirty dish receptacle. There is already a guy there. He may be asleep leaning on the wall, or he may be really drunk at 7pm, or something else may be going on that I don't want to know about. My guess is the third. I ask him (read: wake him up) if he is waiting for the bathroom, and he looks around blinkingly and stammers out a yes. So I stand next to him.

The girl comes out and it is DrunkieJunkie's turn. I explain to myself how great this is; soon I will be the one in there. So I wait patiently. Nothing. I wait a little more impatiently. Nothing. I contemplate running to the bar across the street, but realize I can't make it. My bladder has swelled beyond the point of conceivably "holding it" while I run 50 feet. I start expressing my impatience out loud. Come on, guy! Seriously, it's been about 5 minutes. That's a long time to wait for the bathroom when you should have gone much earlier. I figure now that DrunkieJunkie is doing something in there that I don't want to follow, be it puking, more drugs, pooping, or passing out. I conclude he is dead, and ponder asking one of the restaurant people to do something about it. But I don't want them touching a dead guy and then touching my food. Call me selfish.

Meanwhile, the busboy has passed me nearly 50 times, due to my convenient location in front of the dirty dish receptacle. Without a doubt, he has seen me grow more agitated while my pee-pee dance grows more extreme, and I'm sure has heard me trying to convince DrunkieJunkie to finish up. Since I have been waiting almost 10 minutes with no sign of relief in view, Busboy takes pity on me and asks if I want to use the employee bathroom. "It's smaller," he says, trying to brace me. I don't care. Pee knows no size boundaries, except that of my bladder. I happily accept his offer and within less than a minute am peeing away. I finish up and head back to the table. I notice as I walk by the customer bathroom that it is still ocupado. DrunkieJunkie is definitely not conscious. No one can be in there for that long while awake. I thank Busboy again (3rd time) and return to finish my margarita and nachos.

While eating said nachos (and this actually happened before the whole bathroom incident, but who's counting?) a homeless man approaches our outside table. He stands a few feet off, looking hungrily at our chips. Then he does a weird creepy move, sort of like tickling a baby. He creeps up with his pincers extended, hoping he is invisible enough to snag some of our chips without being noticed. Because I am less drunk than he, I notice. I say "NO" in a stern voice (like training a dog) and make a wall with my hand at the end of the table. He gets the hint (which is good because I don't want to have to fight a crazy, drunk homeless man for my damn chips) and leaves, proceeding to the table next to ours. There he imitates the lady on her cell phone, still doesn't get any food, and moves on to directing traffic with his non-paper bag hand.

And so Memorial Day Weekend is kicked off the right way.

4 comments:

Bamboo Lemur Boys Are Mean To Their Girls said...

I so agree with you regarding the NY mexican food Vaguely resembling the real stuff. I'm from AZ so it's hard to not go in the restaurants kitchen and throw pots. Where did you go? In the city?

super des said...

Bennie's Burritos on Ave. A & 6th st.

The food is pretty good there in it's own right. Plus they have vegetarian options (again, not real Mexican).

SUEB0B said...

Vegetarian options = not real Mexican LOL. You are so right. I am a vegetarian and I just have to pretend not to smell the lard...I guess I could be more hardcore about the pig grease in my beans, but then there would be no beans for me.

When I was in Mexico, my host mom said hopefully "Maybe you could just stop being a vegetarian while you are down here?"

super des said...

Yeah, my Argentine "family" said the same thing to me. I stuck with the vegetarian-ness. I just had to remember when ordering a cheese pizza to also say "without ham."

Apparantly ham is a vegetable south of the border.

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