La Noche de los Nachos

I was working the evening shift at Taco Bell last week when a weird thing happened. A succession of more than a dozen customers came in. Each and every one of them carried Chihuahuas in their arms. Ever since the successful ad campaign a few years back though, this happened a lot.

Some of them were of Asian descent, each in the outfit of his or her chosen trade. One was a nurse…another carried a feather duster in a back pocket and her dog in a bucket suspended from a mop. Still a third had a laptop and a ledger. A young Jewish data analyst in the line wore a Yarmulke and was being nudged along by an evil woman, clearly from New Zealand. There was a Sikh, sporting a turban, and a cowboy in a ten gallon hat, chaps and spurs. There was a priest, clerical collar and all, followed by a clown, followed by a Native American in full headdress. Next was a red-headed construction worker, lugging not only his dog, but a jackhammer. An African American lawyer with his dog in a custom briefcase, a combat pilot in his pressure suit and a stereotypical bimbo starlet stretched the line all the way to the door, where a mime, whose dog was painted silver, anchored the crowd. Not a single one of the customers appeared to be ethnically of Mexican or South American descent.

Again, I was not particularly surprised, since this is a country with a hugely diverse ethnic spread. We have historically welcomed peoples from all across the world. The words inscribed on the Statue of Liberty embody what all freedom-loving peoples strive for. And while it felt like I was watching the Village People…(I expected the strains of “Y.M.C.A.” to flow forth from the radio.)…that still wasn’t what made it so strange.

Each and every one of them ordered Nachos. They all asked for exactly the same item and all ordered with thick Latino accents. There was no variation, no doubt due in large part to the same cute advertising campaign of a few years ago. And ordering Nachos on a Tuesday wasn’t unusual. Our manager had made Tuesdays a “Special Day” for them. But you had to pay extra for the peppers, so usually; few people ordered them that way. Today, everyone did. Wasn’t that odd?