Sunday, May 15, 2005

You Suck!

Do you sometimes find that you have an expectation of something that turns out to be a self-fulfilling prophecy? The lines get blurred and it’s hard to tell if things turned out the way they did because you were right or because you were itching for a fight.

Growing up in central Arkansas, most of us were weaned on “Tex-Mex” style Mexican food. Brownings, Casa Bonita, Pancho’s Villa and of course Mexico Chiquito all served the ubiquitous cheddar cheese and hamburger meat style Mexican food that I’m certain cannot be found in any part of Mexico.

And, these days, it’s getting hard to find around here. Sometime around twenty years ago, the so-called “authentic” Mexican restaurants started coming in. I’ll admit, I found it a refreshing change, being my nature to embrace change, especially in couisine.

But, with the possible exception of La Hacienda on Cantrell Road, all of the Mexican restaurants in this area serve white cheese, runny beans, margarita style food that tastes the same no matter which one you go to.

And I find myself longing for the old fashioned Tex-Mex of my youth. Comfort food of sorts. Trouble is, there are very few of those places left. Brownings is way over in Little Rock, and you know how us Dog Town denizens loathe to go there unless it’s to work.

And that leaves Mexico Chiquito. The old dame of Tex-Mex in this area. But the problem is, ever since a guy named Haney bought it off of the family, it has had the worst service of any restaurant (dare I say?) in the world. Well, actually the KFC and Taco Bell franchises he owns suffer from the same malaise.

I have dealt with these establishments for enough years to recognize that he obviously doesn’t waste any time or money on training. I’ll give them one thing – they are all rude. All of them. And since there are KFC’s and Taco Bells all over the world, I don’t go to the ones he owns. It’s not worth the aggravation.

But every once in a while, I just have that comfort food craving for Mexico Chiquito food. Yes, that has gone downhill quite a bit too, but it’s still a decent representation of the genre. I’d go a lot more if not for the sheer piss-you-off factor. Let’s face it, all of Haney’s restaurants suck. Hell, the nicest one he owned, the one in Lakewood Village, was closed down for health code violations that were so blatant and bad they ended up tearing the entire structure down (did they haul it to a toxic waste dump?) and building an entirely different restaurant on the site. One that Haney doesn’t own, I suspect.

I succumbed, once again tonight, and went to the drive through in Levy. They do a volume business, I’ll grant them that, and after a fifteen minute wait in line, I placed my order at the sign. The voice on the speaker staticked out an unintelligible dollar amount.

Having been through the aggravation of getting to the window and finding my order incomplete and being told I didn’t order certain things, I asked the clerk to read me back my order. Sigh, unintelligible remark in a sarcastic tone of voice, a lightening quick recitation (also unintelligible) of my order and I pulled forward.

The girl at the window scowled at me and demanded an unintelligible sum of money which I asked her to repeat. She shouted it out to me with a glare and I handed her the money. I could see her staring at the cash register through the closed glass window and she seemed puzzled. Window slides open and she demands, “how much did I tell you?”

“Seventeen dollars and seventy three cents,” I replied. “Well, it’s 17.83,” she snapped back. I handed her another dime.

She never said thank you when she handed me the sack of food and closed the window. I checked it over quickly and found everything in order for a change.

Bitch probably spit in it.

5 comments:

Circa Bellum said...

Um, yeah. But you know they say it takes a good four hours for food poisoning to take effect.

Did I come across that bad? I'm not really all that upset, I just felt the need to say something about it...

Anonymous said...

She probably didn't spit in it...the kids in the grill do that...

Maeve said...

I live in Calif, we have a big Latino population where we live. To get some one that understands AND speaks english is a rarity it seems. When we went to Michigan to visit my family my husband went into shock over an actual english speaking person at the take out window. The look on his face was so funny.

BillyBudd said...

You are turning into a grumpy fucker like me......

Anonymous said...

You already know what you're going to go through when you go there so prepare yourself ahead of time. I'm not going to let someone's bad attitude run me away from one of the few Tex-Mex around. I usually over eat anyway. I just expect everything to be wrong with my order, but I clearly and as friendly as I can say the one item I can't live without no matter how many times I have to say it. If they get the rest of the order right, then god bless. I never send items back to people with bad dispositions because you can't even imagine what people will do to your food. As long as the price is close to what I expect to pay, I'm okay. It's the only way I can do it, because the other side of the coin for me is fantasies of drive my car through the kichen area.