Sometimes I see things which can best be described as "sad"...
Last night, after all this Drinking Liberally business, I decided to stop into Little Tijuana for takeout. I really enjoy Little Tijuana: its fatty, Mexicanesque food and its punk-rock ambiance appeal to the scuzz connoisseur in me. Plus, it’s open very late and it’s only a mere block from Insomnia Headquarters. These are the factors that trump authenticity, subtlety and health-consciousness when it comes time for me to choose where to dine.
This time, however, I was very hungry and I just wanted to get my food and go. I wasn’t interested in eavesdropping on tipsy goth girls or seeing some drunken hipster vomit all over himself. Inevitably, when I’m in Little Tijuana, a hipster vomits. Its gotten to the point where I might take it personally, I didn’t understand that it’s against some unwritten rule to be there after a certain hour without at least three strong drinks in you. It’s perfect drunk-person logic, really: Whooo! I just swilled down a gallon of vodka! What should I do now? I know! Let’s go eat ten pounds of greasy (if oh so delicious) Mexican food! Unsuccessful dashes to the men’s room are inevitable under such circumstances.
I didn’t see anyone throw up last night, though. I sat in the chairs up front, waiting patiently for my food, and it was a while before I noticed the strange man sitting alone in the booth near the kitchen. He looked to be around twenty-five years old and he had a short, light thatch of hair above a pinched-up face with that blinked too often. He struck me as intoxicated, although I can’t say this for sure. However, he sure slurred his words when the waitress came around. “Are you waiting for someone?” she asked.
“Waiting?” he asked, seemingly baffled. “No..I’m not..waiting...I’m here..by myself...”
“Oh. Just kidding then,” the waitress said and then he sort of stumbled through the ordering process.
I thought, huh, and went back to reading the Onion. I had nearly forgotten about him when he started to shout. “YOU OUGHTA! YOU OUGHTA!” he boomed, “YOU OUGHTA get some...of that HAIR...out of YOUR EYES!”
Confused, I looked from him to the girl standing behind the register counter. She was wearing an engineer’s cap which pushed her jet-black hair down over her face. To me, it seemed that she couldn’t be more than sixteen, but she must have been older than that to have been working so late at night. She was, I suppose, very pretty, but in that “cute kid” way and not the “I’m gonna hit on this sexy chick” way. She also gave no indication of having heard her admirer.
That didn’t stop him, though. “BECAUSE you’ve got a HOTNESS to you!” he roared and she just went right on totalling people’s bills. I couldn’t tell whether she was actually oblivious or just pretending to be. Either way, it was the right approach.
“Fine...fine...fine...” he muttered after it became clear, even to him, that she wasn’t about to reply to his drastic and ill-conceived wooing strategy. The guy brought me my sack of food a moment later and I left, too hungry to feel any pity for anyone involved in the whole affair.
