Gary Panter blog

Leave a message for the manager or employees of Taco Bell:

You guys work hard. We, the taco eating public thank you!

I see you back there, slipping around on skims of pre-grated cheese, packets of exploded hot sauce, scattered bits of extra-crispy taco shells and scraps of iceberg lettuce. It can't be easy taking orders from the window while making a chicken bacon snack wrap. I can't chew gum and walk straight, so I can only vaguely imagine the fog one must enter; what psychic challenge it must be, trying to order ones senses while taking the order by earpiece, given all the contradictory sensorial input; running back and forth from the colorful branded zones of Baskin-Robbins/Pizza Hut/Taco Bell/Dunkin Donuts—how many colors and smells can you intake per minute? You have to be as canny as a bartender, mixing subtle ratios of matter and flavor bits, into tasty Manhattans of 100% cheesefood, microwaved ground fried beef, frosty sour cream, gloopy russian dressing and so forth, soft or crispy? Each item a routine ( like mixing a martini) a skillful turn of the wrist—a torque, an obstacle course. Your white blouse a little too small for your generous bosoms. I feel for you. All of you. You all. Not just all of you. All of you all. Friendly feelings of humanity. Sensual feelings of thriving earthly animal humanity, chugging along, doing our thing, each one up to his or her eyeballs in it. In the toil of being alive, earning a crust, making a chicken quesadilla or eating a chicken quesadiila: the best thing you guys offer. Not in flavor, though the flavor is fine, but, excellently, in the not-giving-me-a-big-fat-fajita-style-stomachache from eating a beef and bean burrito supreme with two taco supremes, for example, followed by a couple odd Boston cream pies washed inland by a chill Chocolate Blast, which, though wonderful, often revisits my personal scene later in the hour.

Anyhow thanks and best wishes. The public couldn't survive a minute without your reasonable and even counsel, your skillful ladling of deep humanity and subtle manifestations of psychiatric wisdom—like when that guy, yesterday, with his little bitty daughter. He the silent monster and she the harping seal pup endlessly trying to provoke him into action with questions questions questions and him resoluting refusing to acknowledge her existence. It was a titanic battle of wills on the food court. Them on one side of the counter, facing you, you facing them. Him looming overhead, she pecking his ankles. It was your first day, and your English was not so good, getting to know a new system and a complicated piece of machinery with the clear plastic germ guard encased register thingy and you struggling with those handi-wrap sanitary disposable gloves which had dribbled some viscous liquid off your fingers onto the shielded keypad; sheilded yet made slipperly by the bean juice, or red drink, or donut icing or peperoni squishins or chocolate sauce—heck, it had to be something.

Lurch wanted it special and he wanted it with out delay—a customized burrito or two, no sour cream no cheese no lettuce just chicken and beans and he didn't want 'no' or 'what?' or your predictable confusion. Frankenstein with a menacing Blue Tooth hanging out his ear. His tot, a deer tick, looking to draw blood in the toe-hills if she could.

"Daddy, what did that man want? Why is the money in the car? You should stop smoking. Mommy wants a beer and cheese combo. And a Fresca. It's not your turn yet. She's only trying to do her job, Daddy. They're out of napkins. I want two straws. No, I wanted 3 tacos, Daddy. Where's our cinnamon sticks? Can we get a donut?" She, very cute, yammering on and on, him obviously wanting to throw her in the Gowanus as soon as they got outside, but for now imitating a prehistoric monolith.

"Open the register and put in my ten and give me four bucks back is all you need to do. Do it!" he said to you out of the mouth of the wide hollow log that was him.

You looked back with alarm and wide innocent eyes. You backed off. That was psychological wisdom! I felt for you, but you'll get the hang of it. Plus, your prison tats are very elaborate and scary. It'll be a cinch!