Burritos have a reputation for being a classless food. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, because there is a time and a place for classless foods. My issue with the matter is that when you get down to the brass tacks of the issue, burritos aren’t so different from Greek wraps, which you tend to find in a lot more aristocratic environments. If you were to make a meal right now using a pita, refried beans, feta cheese, cheddar cheese, grilled vegetables and tzatziki sauce, what would you call it? I’m not sure. You’re combining some of the finer elements from both the Mexicans and the Greeks. The thing though is that Greeks are universally renowned as being one of the sexier cultures in existence. I don’t think I know anyone that would make the same argument for Mexicans. When I was around 12, I had a massive crush on a Greek girl named Caterina Papadakis who was a few grades above me. She must of hit her growth spurt way early because she was always at least a foot taller than everyone. I always imagined her as a supermodel although she was clumsy and sluggish since she grew so fast. She also had these two beauty marks perfectly symmetrical above each side of her upper lip. I always thought that beauty marks like that were super sexy, and she had two of them. What a babe. She was the perfect girl.

One night, I had this amazing dream about her and I and the local public pool. It was probably one of the best dreams I have ever/will ever have for the rest of my life, so it has been stitched into my memory fabric for eternity. I was playing baseball with my friends in the park that neighbors the pool. I was in center field and had to chase down a foul ball that was hit into the pool. As I am swimming around, fully clothed in my baseball gear, Caterina Papadakis comes out of nowhere looking super hot, and asks me if I want to go down the slide with her. We start climbing the stairs to the top of this giant red slide. The stairs just kept going up into the heavens forever and I am getting increasingly terrified by the second, but her soothing grasp of my right hand keeps me calm and motivated to get to the top. Eventually we reach the stair’s crest, and I refuse to go back down. She convinces me that if we go down together, then we won’t die, so we lay in the slide together. Suddenly, mid-slide, she is completely naked, and we are making out for the rest of the descent down the giant red waterslide that reaches into the heavens. Even though it was just a dream, it went down as one of the most awesome, and arguably most important experiences I have ever had.

The next day, I got to school and immediately started looking for Caterina Papadakis. I remembered the dream so vividly that I knew that when I saw her again, I would be able to picture her naked exactly how she was in real life, which was more than enough reason for me to be late to homeroom. Yet, she wasn’t in her usual location, which was gym class. After asking around, I found out that earlier that morning, some boy had hit her in the face with a dodge ball and called her a fat giant. Evidently, she beat him so mercilessly that it took both the gym teacher and the vice principal to pull her off of his face. I rushed over to the principal’s office as fast as I could to try and catch a final glimpse of my lover before she was taken to the county juvenile delinquency center. I saw her for the last time just as she was leaving the building, wrapped in the arms of the law. She looked back at me like I could save her somehow; like I could break her captive-holder’s wrists like she did with John Gillilan’s face, even though she didn’t even know my name. I stared at her with jilted lover’s eyes, and watched her leave my life. Apparently she is a born-again Christian somewhere in Wyoming now and has three illegitimate children. I don’t have a crush on her anymore.

-Ben Majoy

As usual, I am waiting painfully long for service. Just like every other night at 1:00 in the morning, I’m the person that isn’t employed at Los Burrito Palace that is present in the building, and just like every other night at 1:00 in the morning, the same two people are taking their time bringing me my cup of coffee and cheese quesadilla, which is quite ample with no one else in the building. Needless to say, this Mexican restaurant hasn’t won any awards for convenience or staff friendliness (or anything else) from the local newspaper in the recent past. This is the same Mexican restaurant that no less than 18 hours ago, my favorite server, “Tyler”, got hoisted away by the immigration patrol. You’d think that with a name like “Tyler”, which 1/8 of my entirely Caucasian high school was named, my friend here may actually have a small flat on the west side of town, where he grew up, but apparently he is just as illegal (and Hispanic) as the rest of ‘em. This is not the first time this has happened to “Tyler” though, and he keeps returning, so I can only imagine that he will be back within the month. Regardless, I am sitting alone, waiting for Janet, my less than Hispanic waitress to bring me my food and her uncut granite of a face. Despite her American citizenry, Janet, like “Tyler” she has no business at Los Burrito Palace. She would be better suited at a mediocre coffee, less than mediocre tuna-melt type Diner that sits under the railroad tracks, and is down the road from the local steel mill. She is a devil of a woman, but I find the way that she addresses me as “sweetheart” in her unnaturally low and raspy voice soothing.

I don’t sleep much anymore. I suppose I never really did, but it has just gotten worse since I became a regular at Los Burrito Palace. It has a charm that’s nearly unrecognizable in a town like this. The streets here are so cluttered with strip malls and Circuit Citys that it’s hard to believe that a 24 hour Mexican restaurant, who regularly fails fire and health inspections, could actually remain in business. But it does. And I’m the only regular that I know of. The truth is, they have the worst coffee in town, which is why I like it. It’s comfortable knowing that people like Janet aren’t going to burn down any Build-a-Bear Workshops as attempted nihilistic revolution anytime soon. Places like the Burrito Palace give Janet money to buy cigarettes and smiles, or whatever expression she uses the express happiness. I don’t even get creamer here. It’s usually spoiled.

People like me search for places like this for what seems like their entire life, but it isn’t until an acquaintance of yours from yoga classes invites you to his mariachi band’s Cd release party that you actually find it. How often is it you meet someone like Kent, who bags groceries the food emporium, and is a world class Guitarrón player? Not often enough, in my book. Kent had always seemed like a nice guy, but I had always been a little apprehensive about making conversation with him. He has the look of someone who was home schooled on a Native American reservation by career hippies. His hair is longer than most hair I have ever seen, and he is flexible to the point of bionics. My unease in communication with him is based solely in the speculation that because he is so good at Yoga, he must also be arrogant, which is a genre of people I have never cared for much. I realize that the yoga crowd doesn’t seem much like the demographic that would foster arrogance in accomplishment, but I’ve held my guard up for much less.

If there ever comes a point in your life where an acquaintance of yours tells you that he is in a 7 piece mariachi band and will be having a CD release party at the local Mexican restaurant, it is likely that you will envision this scenario as a hoard of black clad gentlemen in matching black sombreros playing to a mob of beautiful Hispanic women dripping with lustful sweat and dancing carelessly in orange and red summer dresses with a matching red rose gripped in their jaws. This couldn’t have been farther from the truth. I was one of three other spectators for the event, making the audience’s population barely more than half the mariachi outfit themselves. I came to event expecting to mingle with a few other mariachi supporters and possibly mingle over some nachos and a few cold Dos Equis. Two of the other mariachi fans I recognized from yoga, but neither had I ever held a conversation with, so my hopes of human interaction were now becoming a distant goal. Had I not seen her walk into the room at the exact moment that I received my lukewarm cheese quesadilla, I would have walked out of that restaurant for the last time, but I was suddenly captivated, and Kent started to rip wicked warm up lick. I can recognize talent when I see it. I really wish that it hadn’t been Kent. He probably just invited me to show off. What an arrogant dick.

She wore the aroma of Marlboro Reds and cheap perfume like an unfriendly, but tamed boa constrictor. She was the best Spanish guitarist that I have ever and will ever see. Up to this point, I had only seen two other Spanish guitarists, and neither of which I considered especially impressive or sexy. She on the other hand exhibited expertise on both accounts. I spent the entirety of the night slowly nibbling on my stale quesadilla, completely transfixed on the movement of her fingers. At the end of the set, I followed her out to bum a lighter and make small talk about the night. Her name was Manuela and she was the least cordial person I had ever talked to. I had taken a night class at the community college on world music, so I had C- artillery to make a shallow reference and impress her with my expansive tastes. “That lick in the middle of the third song reminded me of an old Paco di Lucia riff from his earlier work”. She knew my motives and expressed it solely through scoffs and exasperated exhalations. I leaned on the light post and tried to hide most of my face in the shadow. In my mind, I was playing Humphrey Bogart in a Spanish version of Maltese Falcon. I smoked my cigarette like its contents were the clearest Oxygen any chemist could recreate. In her mind, and coordinating reality, the light from the Best Buy down the street exposed the fact that my shoes didn’t match my shirt. “Do you guys play here often?” I said in the least interested voice I could imitate. “First time” she said in mid-stride towards the door. I flicked the cigarette towards the spotlight that blew my cover, cursed consumerism, and walked towards my ‘91 mercury lesabre. I didn’t tip that night.

The next morning I had three bowls of cereal, knowing that I needed a legitimate reason to head across town to visit Kent at the Food Emporium. My affinity for impulsive buying only helped the process of small talk as Kent bagged the multiple cartons of fish sticks and popsicles that I felt was a necessary purchase at the time. “Hey who was that guitarist last night? Her playing style reminds me a lot of Paco di Lucia.” I felt it necessary to mention Paco di Lucia to Kent as well. It was my attempt at combating his expertise in Yoga and the Guitarrón with my C- knowledge in world music. She is a student at the conservatory” he said, while thumbing through my many Campbell’s tomato soup cans and boxes of cereal, “She’s really really rude”. Because of both the obviousness of his statement and the fact that I had fallen in love with her, I decided not to merit his comment with a comment of my own. “Well, what’s her name?” I said. He told me that he’d see me at Yoga and requested that I “have a nice day”, without even answering my question. “What a cocky asshole,” I thought to myself as I aggressively walked through the sliding door.

This was the moment that I decided to become a regular at Los Burrito Palace. I came to realize that the conversation that Kent and I had at the food emporium should be taken as a symbol of the fact that if this mystery vixen and I were to fall in love, I couldn’t use the help of outsiders. I started going to the Palace every night, hoping to smell Marlboro Reds emanating from the parking lot, but as every night came to a close, without a single revisiting of the mariachi Guitarist, I stopped looking for a clean table or expecting a decent meal. Every night, I got more comfortable with Janet telling me why her first husband ruined her life, and every night the cheese quesadillas tasted a little less stale. This of course wasn’t because they were becoming less stale. If anything, they were a little less fresh every day. I just got a little more content knowing that no one employed at this restaurant seemed to care how disappointed I was that they weren’t living up to my expectations. As a mediocre world music student at the local community college and a less than mediocre yoga student at the YMCA down the street from my house, its nice to know that somewhere in the world, people don’t make any attempt to be better than sub-par. It takes a lot of off my shoulders having to wait far too long for Janet to bring me my luke-warm coffee. Now, I only half hope that she will walk through the door; half at most.