Wait. You were here last week. It can't be your birthday again.
5. He mispronounces Spanish words when interacting with the waitstaff. Sometimes this is on purpose–as in the case of tor-till-ah (instead of tor-tee-ah) and kwey-sah-dill-ah (instead of kay-sah-dee-yah), and sometimes it’s because he’s too goddamned dumb to know the difference. As in the case of gwack-a-mole (instead of wah-ka-mo-le) and kwee-soh (instead of kay-soh).
Also, he says de nalgas (it’s of ass-cheeks) instead of de nada (it’s of no consequence) when the waitstaff apologize for something.
4. When he finishes with his plate, he snaps his fingers at the first bus boy that walks by, then points at the plate. This wouldn’t be too horrible on its own, but he then says moo-chos gar-see-ass (instead of moo-chas gra-see-ahs). And he usually calls the busboy by whatever Spanish name first comes to his mind: Paco, Hector, Ramon, Miguel, or Pancho, for instance.
3. Always goes to the bathroom near the end of the meal. When he gets up, he always pats his stomach and says, “you don’t buy Mexican food, you rent it.” And then he laughs at his own joke. Which he always does, but somehow it grates on my nerves more at Mexican restaurants.
2. Always makes a point of explaining to the waitstaff, in excruciating detail, that I am vegetarian. “No carne,” he says. “todo sin carne. No carne, no pollo,” he somehow always manages to pronounce pollo correctly, “no puerco.”
“En nada,” he continues, making broad meaningless gestures with his arms. “No en los free-joe-lees,” he always mispronounces free-ho-lehs, and I’m not sure if it’s on purpose or not, “no en la ah-rohs, no en nada.” He pronounces the Spanish word for rice correctly, but assigns the wrong article, which is nit-picky, I know, but I’m always on edge when dining at a Mexican restaurant with my father.
1. Between me, my father, my mother, my sister Rachel, my step-brother Doug, my step-mom Karen, and her sister Laney, we’ve celebrated about thirty-seven birthdays at Mexican restaurants. Of which exactly three were legit, and the rest were for the fanfare and free flan.
My dad loves flan. Even though he pronounces it flann.
And he always stiffs the mariachis after they play Feliz Cumpleanos.
