Taquito Bandito

The drive home yesterday took a little over nine hours. It might have been nine hours exactly, but for the taco thief.

We stopped for dinner at Taco Bell in a travel plaza in South Carolina. The guy behind the counter was calling out a combination of order numbers and descriptions that was a bit hard to understand: oneohninethreehardtacos etc. He called one that sounded in the ballpark of our number, but by the time I had mentally translated what he was saying, a redneck in mirrored shades had grabbed the bag and taken off out the exit. (Making a run for the border, as it were.) The guy then called the number after ours, so Mike asked if they had already called for us. Yep, they sure had. The dude had snaked our tacos!

At first we thought perhaps he just picked up the wrong order, and wouldn't he be disappointed that he didn't get what he ordered, but it then became clear that he hadn't actually ordered anything, he'd just waited for someone to be a little slow on the draw getting theirs. Taco thief!

They made us some new tacos, and the cashier commented that she wouldn't have let anyone come between her and her food. (It's not clear what the appropriate response to that observation would be. I'll let you fill in the blanks.)

At first I was indignent about having our dinner hijacked, but on further reflection, I thought that if life had brought you to a point where you had to steal somebody else's fast food, you probably deserved at least a little sympathy.