The 5 Stages of Eating at a Mexican Restaurant

1.  Excitement
Ari and I get excited when we realize we have enough money to eat out anywhere, and the fact that we both like Mexican food only adds to this jubilation.  I'm always especially excited because I have no disposable income whatsoever.  Sometimes I imagine how I would've reacted when I was eight years old if someone told me I was going to have pizza and brownies for dinner every night FOREVER.  Ari asking whether I want to go out to eat probably elicits a similar response.

2.  Chips
Your Mexican restaurant experience begins with a basket of crack-chips being placed before you with a bowl of salsa.  The quality of the salsa varies depending on the restaurant, but the chips always have crack in them.  I don't even like store-bought tortilla chips very much, but something about those crack-chips activates a deep and primal instinct inside me, turning me into a chip-shoveling machine.  I look down after what feels like a few seconds only to discover I've steadily and efficiently devoured the entire basket.  And somehow, our server always drops by to take our meal order just as I've crammed an especially over-ambitious fistful of crack-chips in my mouth.

3.  Man vs. Mexican Food
A burrito the size of your head is delivered to your table after a surprisingly brief period.  This burrito is always perfectly proportioned so that you will have to choose between being not quite full enough and begging to die.  At first you strategize by cutting it in half, thinking you'll save the other half for later.  But when you finish the first half, you still want more.  So you take a few more bites.  This is when you reach the breaking point.  You're finally full, but there's no longer enough burrito left to warrant a takeout box.  Nevertheless, it's a sizable enough chunk that you'd feel guilty letting it be thrown away.  It was an excellent burrito, after all.  And you make a crucial error:  you think, I'll just finish it. 

4.  Burrito Gestation
You force down the last bite of your burrito, and for one deceptive moment, you honestly believe you have triumphed--but your struggle is only beginning.  The warm, soft burrito you swallowed only moments earlier is now solidifying into a rocklike mass and expanding by the minute.  Gradually, you realize your intestines are now harboring a sinister burrito fetus.  Any minute now, this thing is going to rear its ugly head, bursting from your stomach and clawing its way into the world through the remaining shreds of your flesh.  The movie Alien comes unpleasantly to mind.

5.  Relief
Just when you're certain the moment of reckoning is at hand, you realize your intestines have overpowered the writhing burrito creature within you.  Your brain begins releasing massive amounts of oxytocin so you'll forget the agony of the digestion process and ingest Mexican food again someday.  But for now, in the epic battle of Man vs. Mexican Food, man wins.

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