HISPANICS

Let me tell you what happened when my friend Rich (from Las Vegas) came to Irvine for some training at a mechanic school. He had to do the same thing last year and it's always fun to see old friends. We make it a point to see each other. After all, there aren't many other things as important as friendship.

We decided it was time to go out, so the first stop is usually the bank. I don't know if you know Santa Ana, but it's a city in Orange County that's primarily Hispanic. We go to a B of A and there's a line that's about 10 people long. I don't think any of them could speak English. Or if they did, it was very little. So I ask, "excuse me, but is this normally how crowded it is?" "I don't know," she says, "this is my first time here," and turns around to look at the line.

Not only was the line long, but the person on the ATM is taking a really long time. I mean, at least ten minutes. Now, what takes ten minutes to do at the ATM? Do you really need to transfer money from one account to another? Do you really need to withdraw? Okay, what if you had to deposit money? How long does that take? It doesn't take ten minutes!! There's no chat room at the ATM! There aren't that many options! So I wondered, what the hell is going on here?

So I go across the street to get something to eat. I am not waiting in line for hours just to get to my $20 bill. So I ask the lady in front of me, "Is that place any good? Have you ever eaten there?" She says, "I don't know, this is my first time." Oh yeah, I forgot. So I walk across the street to buy some taquitos. I was thinking about the tacos, but decided I'd go with the taquitos. I chose item #2: taquitos con guacamole. Now, I don't know that much Spanish, but I know what guacamole is. It's that green stuff that comes from avocados right? Right?

But when I get my food, I see three taquitos covered with lettuce, tomatos and sour cream. Nowhere is there the color of guacamole. I look over to my left and see the beans and rice, but the color green is missing. There is no fuckin' guacamole. I look at the board again and it says, "taquitos con guacamole." But I don't speak Spanish and I'm not about to complain that there is no guacamole on my taquitos.

So I start eating them. I ask for some hot sauce which they had a lot of. I love hot sauce. Then, a car stalled across the street from the restaurant. People got out to try to push it, but it wasn't moving. Then, the hood was popped and smoke began to billow out of it. It was black and it left a smokey, dusty smell. Then it caught on fire. When it caught on fire, three police cars drove right by, looked at the car, and continued driving. Three of them. None of them stopped. Finally, someone got a fire extinguisher and used it on the flames. They were estinguished and replaced with a white, dense smoke. All I was thinking of was, I don't want smoke on my taquitos.

But I did call 911. And they asked me, is it a car fire? I said, yes. And they said, okay, we've got that call already. A fire truck is on its way. Ten minutes later, we left. We had things to do. But there was no sight or sound of the truck. In fact, a block away, no one would have known what we saw that evening.